The boss of a recruitment specialist who has seen business drop off a cliff edge since the lockdown believes the 海角视频 economy will get back to normal early in 2021.
James Taylor, the chief executive of Macildowie, said he had to furlough three-quarters of his 80 strong team at the start of the crisis.
As the economy slowly reopens he is looking at which areas to bring staff back into, and hopes his business will be as strong as ever once the economy gets back on an even keel.
Founded in Nottingham, with offices in Leicester and Milton Keynes, the business has been going 27 years, working with clients across central England 鈥 including Games Workshop, Speedo, JCB, Sainsbury鈥檚 and Eon.
It provides white collar staff right through from purchase ledger clerks to chief finance officers.
Annual net fee income 鈥 prior to the lockdown 鈥 was around 拢5.5-拢6 million.
He spoke as new figures show 8 million people 鈥 or one in four workers 鈥 have been furloughed. People on the scheme are getting 80 per cent of their pay covered by the government, up to 拢2,500 a month.
Mr Taylor said: 鈥淭he economy has been battered.
鈥淥ur revenues are down and job flow is down as well. People have made the most of what the Government is offering from furlough and the interruption loan scheme.
鈥淪ome little pockets have been OK like oil and gas because people have been stuck on rigs and still happy to do what they have been doing. Food manufacturing and retail is doing well.
鈥淲hat happens next is the $64 million question.
鈥淧eople were saying at the start of all this it would be a V-shaped recovery, with a sharp dip and sharp bounce back, but the Government has got a really hard job on its hands.
鈥淲hether they have got it right or not, I do not think it鈥檚 going to be that easy.
鈥淚 think the fact that the Government extended the 80 per cent furlough scheme to the end of July illustrates it won鈥檛 be until quarter one next year that businesses will be looking at revenues back at the same level as quarter one this year.
鈥淲e have furloughed 75 per cent of our staff. I have an operational board meeting three times a week because I want to be able to look at the data every two days.
鈥淲e will be bringing back a core guy who works in construction recruitment on June 1 because that market is starting to move again. They say it will be construction and manufacturing first.
鈥淲e had our busiest February in 27 years before this happened. I鈥檝e built an absolutely brilliant leadership team and we鈥檝e got great people coming through the ranks and I hope we can optimise the furlough scheme to come back at full strength.
鈥淭he two things we said when the lockdown started was we wanted to firstly safeguard people鈥檚 health, and second look after the health of the business.
鈥淓very business leader is facing the same thing and now we have to look at the data and the facts.
鈥淲e have already diversified our business so that we are not just blue chip, but doing way more with SMEs who I think are in a wonderful position to take market share from some of the big boys because they are by their nature more agile.鈥
Since the lockdown his business has been working with e-learning and video communication specialist Colab Creation, and human resource experts Culturev8te to make a short series of films showing the sort of support, expert guidance and leadership available to help organisations preparing their workforce and workplaces for the challenges that lie ahead.
Mr Taylor said: 鈥淚鈥檓 massively passionate about the company and love helping people with their careers.
鈥淲e call ourselves a regional specialist because we鈥檝e found that businesses using our services will ask us about other areas.
鈥淣ext has been a stellar client of mine for many years as have Boots and Dunelm. All of the big brands use us to recruit.鈥
