A study to measure the economic effects of COVID-19 on the textile industry: Comparative evidence from Bursa and Gaziantep

Abstract

The textile sector is one of the leading industries in the world and in Turkey. This sector is one of the most affected sectors by the recently emerged New Coronavirus Pandemic. Both people’s and business life are affected and supply chain activities were disrupted. Many companies tried to determine the economic and strategic impacts of the pandemic. This study focused on analyzing the economic effects of the New Coronavirus Pandemic based on yearly comparisons of the textile sector in Bursa and Gaziantep, Turkey. A questionnaire is applied and it includes descriptive questions, economic impact questions, and yearly based comparison analyses of 241 textile companies in Bursa and 181 textile companies in Gaziantep. The obtained data were analyzed via SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 25.0 software by means of, frequency, percentage, average, standard deviations, T-test, and ANOVA tests. Most of the participants stated their economic worries and opinions in the economic impact analysis section. The hypotheses are tested and it is revealed that there is a meaningful difference between operation year, legal status, the market of businesses, and the monthly turnover of companies and how they were affected by COVID-19 in some of the subsets. In Bursa, participants have fewer negative opinions about the sustainability of economic activities. The study results showed that despite increased lead times, delivery times and participants’ negative opinions, monthly turnover, and the number of employees, the number of exporting companies increased in both cities.