COVID-19 POLICIES: ITS EFFECT ON THE PROFITABILITY OF EATERIES IN GENERAL SANTOS CITY PUBLIC MARKET

This paper analyzed how Covid-19 policies affect the profitability of the eateries inside General Santos City Public Market. This descriptive and correlational study aimed to determine how the strict Covid-19 policies and when the policies were relaxed affect the profitability of the Eateries in General Santos City Public Market because they were also one of the most affected by the enforcement and relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions. This study had involved a total of 24 eatery owners as our respondents using the total population sampling. The data were obtained through a survey questionnaire, and descriptive and inferential statistics like measures of frequency, measures of central tendency, and Paired T-test were used to attain the results. The research findings showed that most of the eateries were temporarily closed during the strict implementation which had a percentage of 50.00 and open but with limited operations with a percentage of 41.67, and when the policies were relaxed, the majority of the eateries were now operating fully on-site with a percentage of 87.50%. Moreover, there is an increase of 306.03%, 272.57%, and 151.72% in the average monthly sales, monthly net income, and net profit ratio of the eateries respectively, during the time when the policies were relaxed as compared to when the policies were strict. Finally, this study revealed that there is a significant difference between the profitability during its strict implementation and relaxed implementation of Covid-19 policies.