Over a quarter of SMEs still need government support
Despite the success of the state-backed Covid-19 loan schemes, over a quarter (27 per cent) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) admit they require additional government support in order to stay afloat.
The survey, which was commissioned by Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance, spoke to more than 1,000 senior business decision makers at SMEs across the UK from a range of different industries about how the support from the government has impacted their business.
Read more: SME leaders hopeful of making up lost Covid revenue within a year
Businesses in the East Midlands (39 per cent), Wales (37 per cent), Scotland (33 per cent), South West (28 per cent) and South East (26 per cent) were the regions most in need of additional support, while SMEs in the North East of England required the least.
SMEs in the hospitality and leisure industries were most in need of extra support to survive (54 per cent) followed by those in the manufacturing sector (30 per cent), retail (29 per cent), marketing (27 per cent) and construction (25 per cent).
Read more: SMEs are cautiously optimistic about reopening
In addition, 23 per cent of the SMEs surveyed said they have had to make redundancies as a result of the pandemic, with nearly a third of businesses in London and the South East being forced to let people go, more than any other UK region.
Despite a large chunk of SMEs requiring additional government support, a third of businesses admitted that their firm would not have survived without the government support received to date.
Read more: SMEs forecast growth as lockdowns ease
“While hundreds of thousands of SMEs have benefitted from the government’s support to date, it’s clear that many are in need of more financial help to stay afloat,” said Andy Dodd, managing director at Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance.
“We hope our survey highlights to the government that several industries need more to be done in order to avoid an increase on the 23 per cent of SMEs who have already had to make redundancies as a result of the pandemic.”