Close to half of businesses on Covid supports at start of year

The proportion of businesses in the Republic availing of Covid-related income supports or wage subsidies peaked at 57 per cent last April, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

It fell to a pandemic low of 30 per cent in September before rising again to 45.6 per cent or 113,000 in January this year.

In a new study assessing the take-up of the Government’s wage subsidy scheme and/or the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), the CSO said of the 242,681 registered enterprises here, almost 7 per cent had all their personnel continuously in receipt of PUP since the first lockdown in March/April 2020.

A third of small enterprises (32.3 per cent ) had high levels of personnel on Covid-19 income support in January this year compared to almost 15 per cent of large enterprises.

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Transportation sector

The transportation and storage sector, which includes taxi drivers, had the highest percentage of enterprises with all personnel in receipt of PUP continuously since April 2020 at 22.4 per cent and the second highest in January 2021 at 39.3 per cent.

The “other services activities” sector, which includes hairdressing and other beauty treatment enterprises, had the highest percentage of all personnel in receipt of PUP in January at 40 per cent.