The COVID-19 pandemic global health crisis has also snowballed into social and economic crises. Globally, around 75 million confirmed cases were reported until December 2020, with about 1.6 million... Show More

The COVID-19 pandemic global health crisis has also snowballed into social and economic crises. Globally, around 75 million confirmed cases were reported until December 2020, with about 1.6 million deaths. The pandemic resulted in lockdowns and brought economic activities to a standstill. This severely impacted all business organizations and more so the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs' problems resulted due to lockdown, movement of migrant labor, paucity of funds, and lack of technology. Adopting an exploratory approach based on a systematic literature review of published directories, journals, and reports, the objective of this study is to deliberate on the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs in general and India in particular. Thus, the focus is on exploring the upcoming trends, providing recommendations to deal with the issues, and sketching the future research areas in this particular domain. Findings reveal a reduction in active employment, distress of migrating employees, and a fall in income-generating sources.