Truck firm losing half its business

be parked up,’’ Heagney said.

Heagney Bros runs about 55 trucks and employs about 60 staff, many of whom aren’t able to come to work until the lockdown is lifted.

It transports goods to many parts of the country from its head office in Riverlands, but its major trade routes are to Picton, Nelson and in Marlborough.

At this stage, the company was holding up, but if the lockdown went on for longer, things could get difficult, he said. A lot of other businesses in the industry might not be able to carry on financially, he said.

‘‘No matter what business you are running, most people have got overheads that are still there.

‘‘Whether it’s their rent or insurance or mortgages, the costs are still there, so if you have got zero income, that just keeps mounting up [the debt] if you’ve got no way of paying for it,’’ he said.

Heagney Bros logging truck driver Peter Way said it had been a struggle but grape harvesting had kept some of the drivers going, ‘‘but it’s a shock for all of us financially to be not working.’’

Way had been a truck driver for more than 35 years and this was the first time in his lengthy career he had seen something so dire, he said.

‘‘We have downturns in the industry but nothing like this before. One week we were earning a good salary and next week – next to nothing,’’ he said.

Way normally worked about 60 hours a week earning about $1500 before tax. But now he wasn’t working, therefore he was forced to rely on the Government’s wage subsidy plan, which gave him $585 – about a 40 per cent drop in his weekly income, he said.