The Business Impact of COVID-19 on SMEs in 2020 Survey (BICS) was collected to measure and report on key features of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on small and medium enterprises in Ireland in 2020. A Small or Medium Enterprise (SME) is an enterprise having 1-249 persons engaged. Annual statistics on the business population are generally published with a time lag of 18 months, for example, the 2018 Structural Business Statistics (SBS) results were published in July 2020. However, changes in business activity have taken place more abruptly in 2020 and timelier statistical measures are required.

The release examines the calendar year 2020. The initial base population of enterprises in this bulletin comprises enterprises with between 1 and 249 persons engaged from within the NACE Rev. 2 Sectors 05-82 and 90-96 (see more details on NACE sectors below) which were active on the 2019 Central Business Register. A sample was drawn from this population. The sample was stratified by NACE sector and size class, with the four size classes described below. The survey was conducted online, and the sample size was approximately 8,000 enterprises. It is important to note that the results of the survey apply to respondents only, and that no imputation or estimation procedures have been used in the case of non-response. Therefore, as the results of the survey are unweighted, they may only reflect the characteristics of those who have responded. Due to the low response rate (24%) by businesses to this survey, the feasible breakdown of results is very limited. The distribution of respondents was not evenly spread across the size classes and micro enterprises are more strongly represented compared to other size classes.

Section B - Mining & Quarrying (05 - 09)

Section C - Manufacturing (10 - 33)

Section D - Electricity, Gas, Steam & Air Conditioning Supply (35)

Section E - Water Supply; Sewerage, Waste Management & Remediation Activities (36 - 39)

Section F - Construction (41 - 43)

Section G - Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (45 - 47)

Section H - Transporting and storage (49 -53)

Section I - Accommodation and food service activities (55 -56)

Section J - Information and communication (58 - 63)

Section K - Financial and insurance activities (64 -66)

Section L - Real estate activities (68)

Section M - Professional, scientific and technical activities (39 -75)

Section N - Administrative and support service activities (77 - 82)

Section R - Arts, entertainment and recreation (90 - 93)

Section S - Other services activities (94 - 96)

Annual business statistics are published about 18 months after the reference year. The reason for this time lag is that the figures on active enterprises depend on processed tax return data supplied to the Revenue Commissioners, which businesses have 11 months after the reference year to submit.

Definitions/Concepts

• In some tables in this release, aggregates of NACE Rev. 2 categories, such as Professional and IT Enterprises and Finance and Admin Enterprises are presented. For more information see Background Notes.