Without some Government intervention it is feared that 250,000 small businesses could fail this year, according to a recent study carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
About 5% of the business surveyed stated that they expect that they will close this year. This is an all time high figure from the Small Business Index (SBI) and is more than double than 12 months ago.
Additionally, nearly a quarter of the companies polled by the FSB said they had been forced to reduce their workforce in the final quarter of 2020.
Clearly COVID is having a huge detrimental income on the economy, and with no clear end in sight this will continue to be the case well into 2021. It is critical that the Government puts the correct packages in place to support small firms, who will be instrumental in leading the recovery.
FSB National Chairman, Mike Cherry, believes that despite a positive and exceptionally good start by the Government with the various support packages:
“The development of business support measures has not kept pace with intensifying restrictions. As a result, we risk losing hundreds of thousands of great, ultimately viable small businesses this year, at huge cost to local communities and individual livelihoods”
Hopefully, in the coming months a plan will emerge to not only bring the County out of Lockdown, but also to support the small businesses that are the backbone of the economy.