Small firms struggling to keep up with COVID costs

Making businesses Covid-secure is costing smaller firms time and money, with many owners worried they will not be able to afford to pay themselves a salary in the next six months, a study suggests.

Owners of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) say maintaining safety measures is significantly impacting their business.

A survey of more than 1,000 SMEs found that one in four spend over an hour a day making sure their workplace is Covid-secure.

Small business lender Iwoca said its study also found that one in three SMEs have lost customers and sales since before the pandemic and one in four have fewer staff.

Around two in five respondents said they worry they will not be able to afford to pay themselves a salary in the next six months.

Iwoca chief operating officer Seema Desai said: "As restrictions are being eased, many small business owners are chomping at the bit to recover their full potential.''

It comes as the potential delay to the easing of coronavirus restrictions on the 21st of July is being seen as a major blow for many firms.

That's in addition to new guidance for residents across Lancashire and Greater Machester urging them not to meet indoors and to minimise travel.

You can learn more about the new guidance here.

Rob Downes is from the Greater Manchester Federation of Small Businesses, he said the next week is going to be make or break for many firms:

"The businesses that have opened pre June 21st have spent quite a lot of money on making their premises COVID secure."

"It goes beyond just sanitiser and that kind of thing. The staff have to be trained, you have to make sure that's part of the culture within the companies."

"The businesses that were looking to June 21st, they really were looking to that day because the idea was that there would be no restrictions."

"No face masks, no social distancing, everything was gonna be back to normal for those businesses."

"That was because they couldn't run with those restrictions in place, a nightclub can't run social distancing it's just impossible."

"Imagine dancing around the nightclub with a mask on. It just won't wash."

"So that's the worry, particularly in Greater Manchester, if we're going to have a different flavour of easing of lockdown come June 21, that makes it even more difficult for our nightclubs for example."

"We've got a lot to hear from the government in the next week and really businesses could have done with that information sooner."

"Planning is going to be difficult to implement. It might be impossible in some cases but we'll just have to wait and see what the prime minister says."

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