How UK Industries Are Economically Affected By Coronavirus

While experts expect all Industries to be affected by the seemingly continuous spread of COVID-19, more emphasis was placed on industries that deal with food and housing.  Other Industries that were predicted to also experience severe effects as a result of the pandemic are transport and leisure-related services.

Several reports predict that the uncertain effects of Brexit on the economies of the majority of Industries in the UK will be less significant than that of COVID-19.

In this post, we will take a quick look at how UK Industries are economically affected by the coronavirus.

Predicted COVID-19 Effects on Sales

No business owner, anywhere in the world, should be surprised when they hear that COVID-19 will have a huge effect on sales. It is clear that sales in the UK will be significantly affected by the coronavirus. A survey that consisted of several business owners in the UK asked members of the panel to indicate the effect they predict COVID-19 will have on their companies’ sales.

They were asked to come up with 5 unique probabilities on how they feel their sales will be affected by coronavirus within the next year.

About 71% of the responses expected a harmful effect on sales over a period of one year. 39 per cent of the responses predicted that the harmful effect on business sales will be severe while 32 per cent predicted that the effect will be mild. 7 per cent of the responses predict that there will be no effect on the sales of the company. On the other hand, the remaining 22 per cent predicted that the effect of coronavirus on their company’s sales will be positive. As the survey continued, the responses of the members of the survey panel became more gloomy.

At the time of the survey, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the UK had spiked to 4000 from 160. Furthermore, the UK government had just declared further measures that involved telling everyone to stay at home and prohibiting industries from operating normally. These measures were put in place to curb the seemingly continuous spread of the virus. Medical facilities were already full and the government was in search of temporary facilities that would serve as isolation centres for confirmed COVID-19 patients.

This was before industries like Smart-space offered to partner with the government to provide temporary modular medical facilities and the number rose to over 200,000 confirmed cases. After all these events took place, the responses of the member of the panel rose from 39 per cent to 60 per cent at the conclusion of the survey.

Industry Sales Results

Tourism, housing, leisure, and food industries predict the most severe effects of COVID-19 on their sales. About 60 per cent of the members of the panel in the survey expected a huge harmful effect of coronavirus on the sales of these industries.

50% of the answers from the survey ranked storage and transportation to be the next industries to experience a harmful effect on sales after the industries listed above with wholesale and retail industries.

Bottom Line

Industries in the UK are experiencing insecurity as a result of the seemingly endless spread of coronavirus. Reports suggest that 81 per cent of business owners claim that the coronavirus falls among the top 3 reasons for insecurity in their business.

With more temporary facilities, the UK government will be able to build more isolation centres to curb the further spread of the virus. Industries will have reasons to hope again when they see that appropriate measures have been put in place to treat infected people.