» Business survey:
MORE than half of firms in Wales say the Covid-19 lockdown has had a “catastrophic impact” on their business.
That was one of the findings from Reach plc’s Great Big Business Survey – aimed at uncovering what the pandemic has meant for hundreds of firms across the UK.
More than 220 firms in Wales took part in the study and the findings made concerning reading for the nation’s economy.
Nearly 20% of those who took part were from the accommodation and food services sectors – perhaps an indication of the devastating impact lockdown has had on those industries. Firms in retail, another badly hit sector, made up 12.5% of respondents.
From all the replies, 53.8% of respondents said the lockdown has had a “catastrophic” impact on their business – above the UK figure of 47%.
Of those remaining, 28.4% said it has had a negative impact – meaning more than 80% of respondents have been hit.
Only 11% said it had created opportunities or resulted in something positive.
These figures are not surprising as the survey also revealed more than half of businesses which responded are currently closed, while 29.9% were trading at substantially lower levels than normal. Only 7% were trading as normal or at improved levels.
This is reflected in the revenue levels, with only 7.6% of businesses saying their turnover hasn’t declined since the lockdown.
A shocking 47% had seen turnover disappear completely in the lockdown.
■ Furlough
More than half of companies have used the UK Government furlough scheme for staff, with 20% of those saying they don’t expect to be able to bring back staff once the Job Retention Scheme ends – while 40% don’t know.
Only 23% said they were confident everyone would return.
So far nearly 20% of businesses in the survey had already cut jobs.
Nearly 40% of businesses have introduced pay cuts for staff – which ranged from 10% or less to more than 50% of wages.
Meanwhile, 32.5% of businesses said that they have cancelled or cut dividends and bonuses since the lockdown; 14.8% said they have not, while 52.7% said the question did not apply to their business.
The pressure is telling on businesspeople, with 17.5% of owners saying that lockdown has had a major negative impact on their mental health and 49.7% saying it has had some negative impact.
■ Home-working
A majority (60%) of firms which responded said their business can’t operate from home – while 36% said they had coped reasonably well with the move to home-working.
More than a quarter said they would look to continue this after lockdown ends.
Looking at social distancing, 30.0% of businesspeople said it would be extremely difficult for their business to implement social distancing measures over the medium or long term; while 34.1% said it would be somewhat difficult, 20.6% said somewhat easy, and 15.3% said very easy.
When it comes to business support from the UK and Welsh governments, 40.0% of businesses think the measures introduced as a result of Covid have been right, while 42.4% think they’re too little.
Around 60% say the advice about closure has been clear and easy to understand.
■ The future
Of those surveyed, only 20.5% of businesses said they feel very confident about surviving the Covid-19 outbreak, 43.3% said they were somewhat confident, 15.8% said not very confident, 13.5% said not confident, and 7% said they are already closing down.
Thinking about how their business will look after the pandemic is over...
■ 7.5% of people said they would be considering pay cuts for staff;
■ 5.3% said they would consider reducing bonus payments;
■ 6.2% would consider removing bonus payments;
■ 22.5% reducing staff hours; ■ 5.7% reducing overtime; ■ 15.9% freezing annual pay increases;
■ 11.5% more zero-hours contracts; ■ 17.2% redundancies; and ■ 25.6% said they would consider other measures.
Just over 45% of businesspeople said they think it will take their business more than a year to return to 100% of its pre-coronavirus turnover, and 20.4% said they think it will never get back to that level.
Alistair Houghton, editor of our sister website Business Live, said: “The pandemic and resulting lockdown have had a massive impact on businesses across the country, as shown clearly in the results of our Great Big Business Survey.
“Companies have been forced to close or furlough staff, while many say they will find it hard to adapt to working from home. But across the country, a majority of businesses were confident they would survive this crisis.
“Here at BusinessLive, we’ll keep fighting for Britain’s businesses and we’ll keep telling their stories as they power our economy ahead. If you’ve got a story to tell, let us know.”
■ Visit www.business-live.co.uk/