ONS Statistics – How are people and businesses coping in the lockdown?

These changes are impacting businesses and our working lives.

From the ONS: In the two weeks to 5 April, 1 in 4 businesses reported that they have temporarily closed or paused trading.

Of those responding to our survey who are trading, we see they are facing challenging conditions with around 1 in 5 of their workforce furloughed under the Governments Job Retention Scheme, and with around 2 in 5 trading business reporting substantially lower turnover.

This impact on businesses was being felt by the population too. Work-related concerns were mentioned by nearly 40% of adults as being among their current anxieties, the main one being availability of work and decreased hours and the potential or actual closure of their own business. Some of these concerns were also around home-working.

Nearly 23% of adults were worried about the impact on their household finances, primarily in relation to reduced income.

• Of these, 73% said they had had to use savings to cover living costs.
• 43% of people expected their financial situation to get worse over the coming 12 months.

Looking ahead, a third of adults thought it would take four to six months before life would return to normal but people are finding ways of coping with staying home, the most common being making sure they are keeping in touch with friends and family.

Tom Warrender, Board Member and Partner comments:

The phrase being used at the moment, understandably so, is “unprecedented times”; the word I’m using a lot is “adapting”. As a business we, along with our clients and contacts, have had to adapt to this situation. We went from circa 30 people with homeworking facilities to 100+ in a very short space of time, thanks to a gallant effort by our in-house ICT Team and the excellent cooperation and determination of everyone at Wilson Browne Solicitors.

The key thing now is to not forget people, be sure to keep in touch, and that applies just as much to your own employees as it does your clients. That word “adapting” comes to mind again as we adapt to new ways of working and meeting, be that conference calls or video calls such as Zoom/Skype/Teams and the like.

Don’t be afraid to share positive news, that you are still open (be that via, there’s that word again, adapting to homeworking etc.) that you are still here for people. Keep your employees appraised of any positive news and do not let anyone feel alone.

Keep an eye on the Government updates and the resources available. Here at WB we have our own Coronavirus Advice Hub offering free advice and guidance to businesses and individuals, whether existing clients or otherwise.

We will get through this, stay strong, stay positive and stay safe”