Survey analyses lockdown impact on businesses

The majority of businesses which took part in a recent survey say they've been feeling the effects of the latest lockdown.

168 organisations took part in the Isle of Man Chamber of Commerce's most recent 'impact tracker' survey earlier this month, which looks at the impact the pandemic is having on firms and how aware companies are of government support measures around the issue.

Of those who responded, just under 71 per cent said they'd been impacted negatively, a little over half had seen a 75 to 100 per cent impact on turnover or sales, and just over a quarter (27.85 per cent) of companies said they had three to six months of cash reserves.

Meanwhile, awareness of government support during the pandemic is high, with 84.7 per cent of respondents having knowledge of the Salary Support Scheme and just under 86 per cent being aware of the MERA initiative.

Chamber CEO, Rebecca George, says: "We began conducting the Impact Tracker surveys during the Island’s first lockdown, and they proved to be an effective way to gather the opinions from the business community.

"As always, we’re grateful to everyone who took the time to take part because the results really do help to get an insight into how businesses are coping, their concerns about the future, and the support they need."

Among the other statistics, more than half of the respondents (57.42 per cent) said they had either applied, or planned to apply, for one or more of the IOM Government’s support schemes.

Elsewhere, 107 out of 158 respondents said they did not expect to make any redundancies even if the lockdown was extended by another two weeks - but 15 said redundancies may be a possibility if that were to happen.