Puebla, Pue. Despite the total reopening of businesses, since last January, the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Canaco Servytur) in Puebla He explained that it has not been possible to recover 50% of the jobs lost due to low sales and insecurity.
Marco Antonio Prosperi Calderonlocal president of the organization with 7,000 members, explained that businesses of all kinds have been facing economic recovery slowly, a situation that puts them in a containment plan and will have to wait until next year to see a panorama with pre-pandemic figures.
He explained that the official indicators, at least in terms of jobs, are far from the reality of a business, which is forced to do more with little staff since it does not have enough income to open contracts that reinforce activities.
Even, he said, the hours of sales in stores they have been shortened because people have not recovered their purchasing power, which is also felt by restaurants, which “although they used to work 12 hours, now they only work 10 or less, having few staff and because insecurity in Angelopolis has gone to the rise”.
In this vein, he said that in order not to put employees and diners at risk due to assaults, they close two hours earlier than normal, in addition to the fact that there is a high turnover of personnel in these businesses.
Prósperi Calderón indicated that the economic reopening was positive, but the market has not yet responded, since in the commerce sector it is approximately 65% in average sales, whose improvement is expected until 2023.
However, he said that the summer vacations and return to school will lead to more sales, especially for the purchase of school supplies, uniforms, shoes and clothing.
He specified that insecurity is now influencing the hours of operation, because business owners fear being victims of assaults at night.
Given this, he called on the municipal authorities to reinforce security at night, which gives confidence to businesses and customers, to promote better sales.
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