Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the operation of small and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract: The onset of the pandemic and the subsequent introduction of restrictive measures created many risks for the functioning of SMEs. But at the same time, it also brought a lot of opportunities. Although many economists long expected the arrival of the crisis and in 2019 the first signs of recession appeared in advanced economies, no one expected that it would be accelerated and deepened by the global pandemic. SMEs had to adapt to the new situation as quickly as possible to survive. Moving those activities, the nature of which allowed them, to the online environment became key. The aim of the article is to theoretically define what changes SMEs had to deal with after the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of the fulfilment of this goal, on the one hand, we decided to monitor several indicators capturing the economic situation in SMEs and, on the other hand, their approach to the modernization of the process. Within this research, we identified how the share of employees working via home office changed during the pandemic period, how SMEs prepared for the possibility of introducing a home office, how added value and employment in SMEs developed during this period, as well as whether the share of innovative SMEs in the Slovak economy changed.