Bouncing back after lockdown
Two months on from New Zealand’s coronavirus lockdown and companies in New Plymouth’s industrial park say business is better than expected.
Wide Span Sheds director Laurence Greig said at one point he thought he’d have to ‘‘mothball’’ the business for six months and lay everyone off.
But things were bouncing back quicker than expected for the firm, which is situated in Oropuriri Rd, Bell Block, Greig said.
‘‘We’re now seeing a big upswing in the number of people inquiring, partially because we cover both commercial buildings and shed houses, so we’re doing quite a lot in the rural lifestyle area where people buy a shed and make one or two bays habitable – that is an extremely low-cost way of building.
‘‘People are saying ‘I can’t justify spending the money on a $3500 a square metre house but I can justify a shed house’, which is possibly half or a third of that.’’
Greig had also seen commercial inquiries increase with businesses looking to downsize office space, as working from home became more popular. However, Greig did let four staff go. ‘‘Of our 11 builders we had four that were on 90-day trial at the time, so I executed the 90-day trial and let them go, although I took one back on for the period for lockdown and paid them the subsidy.
‘‘I also made a decision with the other three to pay them the equivalent of four weeks of the subsidy from our own funds.’’
Down the road at Metro Fires, the end of lockdown also signalled the start of winter, which made the post-Covid transition easier.
The business was an essential service through lockdown for repairs and installations but managing director Darin Butler said it wasn’t enough to ‘‘turn the wheels’’.
‘‘When we went into level 4 the weather was nice but when we went into level 3 it was cold, so we had an instant demand.
‘‘But April is our biggest trading month of the year, and we lost that.’’
Butler said May and June had been better than expected, with installations booked out for 8 to 10 weeks, but rather than concentrating on sales targets it was just about getting through.
‘‘In recessions people tend to focus on their home and spend money on their home, they want to be warm. Nobody wants to be cold.’’
One of the industries hit hardest by Covid-19 was the event industry, and Dobson’s Marquee and Party Hire managing director Jenny Dobson said lockdown had been devastating for their business and clients.
‘‘We still had a lot of work booked which all got tipped over.
‘‘It was frightening for people because they put their heart and soul into their plans and all of a sudden it got taken away from them.’’
They hadn’t had to make any redundancies but Dobson said without the wage subsidy it wouldn’t have been pretty.
While most events could be rebooked, the borders being closed affected many people’s plans, and for those who couldn’t rebook Dobson’s had been paying deposits back when asked.
‘‘People don’t need to worry about having anything less.
‘‘It’s been a good time to stop and think about our businesses and how we do things.’’