BUSINESS
Europese ondernemingen in gevaar
October 26, 2020 - One in four British businesses is receiving government support, compared with about one in six Spanish and one in seven French, German and Italian companies, according to a YouGov survey of almost 2,000 businesses.
More than two in five British businesses (45%) believe it will take at least a year to recover financially from coronavirus curfews. This figure is the highest figure among the countries in the YouGov survey, despite more companies in Britain being content with the Government’s support.
In Spain, three in five businesses (59%) believe they will have to lay off employees before the new year. One in ten (10%) businesses in Europe’s Iberian Peninsula expect to let half of their workforce or more go.
Italian businesses are the least likely to expect redundancies; however, a third (32%) still expect there would be more redundancies this year.
The pandemic has hit European firms hard, with seven in 10 (70%) reporting falling revenues. Over half of Europe’s small and medium-sized companies -- which together provide jobs for more than 90 million workers -- fear for their survival in the coming 12 months.
The UK-based YouGov survey included 1,923 companies in five countries between September 23 and October 2, 2020. The governments of all the surveyed nations have now announced further support for jobs in efforts to stem unemployment amid a second wave of the virus.