John Cole
John runs three businesses and employs over 20 staff. He found the different stages of the pandemic had differing effects. The year 2020 saw a long lockdown, but with the government subsidy paying 80% of wage costs the businesses were not too badly affected. However, in 2021 and now in 2022 he is seeing long periods of decline with no subsidies. His sports apparel firm in particular, saw a 30% decline requiring John to dig into reserves to keep it operating. In the meantime, his other two businesses weren't too badly affected.
Vaccination mandates have caused some problems, not least because he has some immuno-compromised staff. One anti-vaxxer in particular proved difficult. With careful thought and legal advice John found a solution.
Errol Tong
Errol has run his factory for many years and has largely Asian and Polynesian staff. He owns his factory so his overheads were not as high as they could have been. The government subsidy helped and, under the circumstances, his staff were happy to receive 80% of their normal wages during that period.
He had no problems with anti-vaxxers and his online business flourished.
Brian Lummis
Brian's business, Chalet Caterers, has been operating for over 50 years and mercifully has resilience. The business was hit hard by the first, sudden lockdown when they were suddenly closed down for six weeks with a great deal of perishable stock on their hands. Some stock could be frozen but much was ruined. Although the business was closed, Brian or someone else had to come in every day to ensure all the freezers were working. After six weeks things improved, but after the August 2021 lockdown the government was less helpful with subsidies and business was very quiet, including over the Christmas period. Although catering for some functions still took place, statutory limits on the number of attendees and the fact that many people were just cautious meant the business was struggling.
2021 was a very tough year but his business survived. Now, with the traffic light system in place there is more confusion about the rules than before.
John Mathews
The Real Estate sector has not been too badly affected because of booming prices and that the fact that there's always a segment of the population that has to move houses no matter what.
The industry had to adapt how it operates. Most agents now work from home and his firm has divided 30 agents into two teams that co-operate and co-ordinate their work so that there is always someone available. At times, inspections and sales had to be carried out by Zoom, as were team meetings. At level three, buyers could not physically visit houses, and at level two vendors had the right to refuse to have unvaccinated people in their homes.
John thinks that the Real Estate industry has also been indirectly affected as the economy is slowing down. Agents are contractors, not employees, so their earnings will suffer. He noted that the slow-down is aggravated by world-wide transportation difficulties as many ports and delivery companies are adversely affected by absences due to Covid-19 sickness and quarantining of many workers.
Member, Robin Aitken commented that freight across the world had increased drastically, some by up to 800%, and that ships at some ports in Australia were waiting up to 47 days to get a birth.
There was consensus at Monday evening's meeting that 2022 was going to be a difficult year.
(Can you spot the error? The first person to contact David Gledhill with the correct answer will receive a drink of their choice! )