There is a tendency to swing between happiness that the country is getting on top of the coronavirus and concern for the future once the economy fully re-opens but it’s not ALL doom and gloom according to new research from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
It’s latest Business Impact of COVID-19 Survey (BICS) is out and shows 76 per cent of enterprises are continuing to trade as of this month.
The online survey was sent to a sample of 3,000 businesses and the information was collected between Tuesday, May 5 and Monday, 12 May 2020. The response rate to the survey was 24.5%.
Commenting on the results, Statistician, Colin Hanley, said:
‘From the first wave of the BICS, 16.8% of the enterprises who had ceased trading by 19 April and also responded to Wave Two had returned to trading by 3 May.
‘Most responding enterprises (70.4%) had a reduction in turnover of 10% or more during the two-week period from Monday 20 April to Sunday 3 May, compared to normal expectations.
‘More than half (52.3%) of enterprises who responded to the survey indicated that they had implemented working arrangements to facilitate social distancing measures in response to COVID-19.
‘Repurposing of production to meet new demands for products during COVID-19 was reported by 10.4% of respondents. This includes products such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or hand sanitiser, for example.
For the statistics geeks among you it is important to note that the results presented in the survey represent responding enterprises only and are unweighted.’
Here is snapshot of the findings.
A clearer picture of the entire economy will only be visible once the country clears the remaining re-opening phases.
That could be scary.
