Almost 60% of businesses availed of State Covid supports

Almost six in 10 businesses availed of State supports in response to the Covid-19 pandemic between March and September, according to a new report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).The Business Signs of Life: State Supports report is part of a series aimed at examining changes in the Irish business economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It provides insight into business uptake of the State’s Covid-19 payroll support which includes the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS), Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) and Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

The results show that between March and September 59.3 per cent of enterprises availed of either the Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS) or had employees or self-employed in receipt of the PUP at least once.

More than a fifth (21.4 per cent) availed of the WSS at some point while 54.1 per cent had employees or self-employed persons in receipt of the PUP.

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The month with highest uptake of employment-related support was April when 57 per cent of enterprises had staff in receipt of TWSS or PUP.

This declined each month to September when 29.2 per cent of enterprises availed of support, the lowest month in the period covered.

The enterprises with PUP recipients followed the same trend, peaking in April (51.8 per cent) before declining to a low in September at 24.1 per cent.

The TWSS peaked in July at 16 per cent with the lowest uptake in March at 3.9 per cent (the scheme only started on March 26th). In September, 10 per cent of enterprises availed of the EWSS which had replaced the TWSS.

Restrictions

More than a third (34.4 per cent) of enterprises in all sectors had all their pre-Covid-19 employees or self-employed persons in receipt of PUP during the first lockdown in April. This declined over the summer as restrictions eased to 11.9 per cent by September.

Other service activities had the most enterprises with all their persons engaged in receipt of PUP at least once between March and September, at 57.8 per cent. The proportion in this sector peaked in April at 55.8 per cent.

More than half had all persons engaged on PUP in May (55.4 per cent) and June (52.2 per cent) before falling to 25.9 per cent in July and to 13.6 per cent by September.

Almost half (49 per cent) of enterprises in transportation and storage had all their persons engaged in receipt of PUP at some point between March and September.

While this peaked in April (47.6 per cent) like most sectors, its decline has been slower with 29.8 per cent still in this situation in September, the highest proportion of any sector in the month.

The sectors with the highest proportion of enterprises that had all staff on PUP in April were other service activities (55.8 per cent), construction (52.1 per cent) and transportation and storage (47.6 per cent).

More than eight in 10 (83.4 per cent) enterprises in the hairdressing and other beauty treatment activities had persons in receipt of the PUP at some point between March and September.

Other activities with high levels of employment-related support take-up were building completion and finishing (75.4 per cent), which includes plasterers, painters and fitters; restaurant and mobile food services (75.1 per cent); beverage serving activities (72.7 per cent); hotels and similar accommodation (70.6 per cent) and taxi operators (66.9 per cent).