Ok, so it’s no secret that 2020, as far as years go has been quite a pooper, but, while the press like to put a specific spin on things, you may find that if you are a business, things aren’t as bad as the press are making them out to be.
Let’s Flip The Headline
Ok, so the first thing we need to address is the power of the press. You may have noticed that one of the first headlines to hit when the news of the recession hit was this:
1 in 3 businesses making redundancies!
Initially, we need to look at things from this angle. 1 in 3 sounds bad until you realise that we are in the biggest recession on record and almost 70% of British businesses are not only surviving, they are thriving.
The second thing we need to look at is also quite eye-opening. In 2019 (before any pandemic) we projected that around 140 thousand people would be made redundant this year anyway, especially if the trends from previous years are anything to go by. The actual figure looks to be slightly lower than this, even with a pandemic still going on.
How Is This Positive?
How about a little peep into the rabbit hole? Well, prepare yourself, because some of these figures are going to leave you a little lost for words.
In the previous section we looked at the number of projected redundancies for this year and saw a figure of around 140 thousand people…this would, of course, lower the employment rates for 2020 right? Well, in fact, that’s wrong.
This is where things get strange, while we are in a recession, the amount of employed people this year (pre redundancy) is 263 thousand more than 2009 with a whopping figure of 27.93 million employees in the United Kingdom.
In a bigger turn of the screw, there are 4.9 million self-employed people in this country that are still going strong. So why is the recession not punishing all businesses?
Well, the answer to this is quite simple, 99.3% of all businesses in the United Kingdom are classified as a small business, and one of the things that makes Britain so great is that small businesses often prop each other up and this seems to be exactly what is happening here.
So What Does It All Mean?
To bring things to a natural end, the conclusion is simple, it means that it matters not if you are a small business, or self-employed, the recession doesn’t mean the end for you, in fact, it can mean a new beginning.
This recession is one of the best times to get yourself out there and mingle with other small, independent businesses in your area.
Remember, it’s times like this that can really make your business, so maybe it’s time to think outside the box and really do something different with your business.