Almost 60% of businesses availed of State pandemic supports, says CSO

• Published date: 19 December 2020
• Date: 19 December 2020
• Author: Colin Gleeson
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

It provides insight into business uptake of the State's COVID-19 payroll support which includes the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS), Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) and Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

The results show that between March and September 59.3 per cent of enterprises availed of either the Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS) or had employees or self-employed in receipt of the PUP at least once.

More than a fifth (21.4 per cent) availed of the WSS at some point while 54.1 per cent had employees or self-employed persons in receipt of the PUP.

The month with highest uptake of employment-related support was April when 57 per cent of enterprises had staff in receipt of TWSS or PUP.

Lowest month

This declined each month to September when 29.2 per cent of enterprises availed of support, the lowest month in the period covered.

The enterprises with PUP recipients followed the same trend, peaking in April (51.8 per cent) before declining to a low in September at 24.1 per cent.

The TWSS peaked in July at 16 per cent with the lowest uptake in March at 3.9 per cent (the scheme only started on March 26th). In September, 10 per cent of enterprises availed of the EWSS which had replaced the TWSS.

More than a third (34.4 per cent) of enterprises in all sectors had all their pre-COVID-19 employees or self-employed persons in receipt of PUP during the first lockdown in April. This declined over the summer as restrictions eased to 11.9 per cent by September.

Other service activities had the most enterprises with all their persons engaged in receipt of PUP at least once between March and September, at 57.8 per cent. The proportion in this...