Press Statement

Preasráiteas

23 June 2020

Go to release: Business Impact of COVID-19 Survey 4 May to 31 May 2020

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (23 June 2020) published the results of the third wave of its Business Impact of COVID-19 Survey (BICS). Wave Three of the BICS release captures important information on business in Ireland as society and the economy reopen.

The online survey was sent to a sample of 3,000 businesses and the information was collected between Tuesday, 2 June and Wednesday, 17 June 2020. The response rate to the survey was 27.9%. Commenting on the results, Statistician, Colin Hanley, said:

‘The results show that 89.4% of responding enterprises were trading in some capacity, 9.6% have temporarily ceased trading while 1.0% have ceased trading permanently on 31 May 2020.

More than a quarter (26.3%) of responding enterprises restarted trading in May. In the Construction sector, 58.1% of enterprises restarted trading.

More than seven in ten responding enterprises (71.5%) had a reduction in turnover of 10% or more during the four-week period from Monday 4 May to Sunday 31 May, compared to normal expectations. However, 30.9% indicated that their turnover had increased following the easing of restrictions on Monday 18 May.

Almost three quarters (74.2%) of enterprises who responded to the survey indicated that they had rearranged the workplace to facilitate social distancing measures in response to COVID-19 while 37.8% had introduced occupancy limits in the workplace. More than two fifths (41.3%) of enterprises required mandatory PPE in the workplace.

It is important to note that the results presented in the survey represent responding enterprises only and are unweighted.’

The fourth wave of the CSO’s Business Impact of COVID-19 Survey will be distributed on 29 June 2020.

The CSO wishes to thank respondents to date for their ongoing participation in the survey.

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