Slow re-start to business

Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) Edward Clarke is giving the assurance that companies are trying their best to rehire staff who were laid off during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as the economy reopens fully for business.

However, he suggested that it could be some time before many private sector entities return to pre-coronavirus levels with a full staff complement especially given their dependence on the tourism industry.

“It is still slow, and you will see people having to manage their operations to suit their level of revenue. That is a part of business and many businesses are trying to keep as many people employed as they can within the conditions and try to hold on until we get through this dead period until November/December, hopefully,” said Clarke.

About a third of the workforce, or over 42,000 people were on the breadline at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic here.

Explaining that several businesses were opened prior to this week’s announcement by Prime Minister Mia Mottley that there would be further lifting of restrictions come Monday, June 15, Clarke said he expected a slow return to work for some industries.

“I think you will still not see 100 per cent of people back in the office. Some companies are already trying to do a split between working from home and in the building structure,” he added.

“A lot of people have come back to work but so many companies have not seen any real inflows of revenue. Things have been very slow in Barbados since reopening. There was the initial spur when things opened back for most businesses, but things have slowed down again.

“People are being very cautious as they spend and a lot of people are on the breadline. So it is a matter of trying to get everybody back in on a staggered approach, trying to keep people employed, but the revenue is the issue at this stage and hopefully we will see people spending more now as they get back into the routines,” he added.

Notwithstanding the slow return to commerce, Clarke told Barbados TODAY he was happy that the economy was once again “moving” and the BPSA members were eagerly looking forward to the return of tourism inflows.

Barbados earns an estimated US$1 billion in tourism spend per year, but with the pandemic, which has resulted in the grounding of commercial flights and heavy restrictions on travel, the country will lose out on the majority of that this year.

Barbados is expected to open for commercial flights from the Caribbean at the end of this month and extra regional flights by the end of July.

“We just need to make sure we do the right things and ensure the safety of Barbadians,” he said.

“So any activity back in the workspace would mean people are moving around and moving about and expendable income would be utilized. So we are happy to see people back out and activity taking place. We welcome it,” said Clarke, who added that he was now eagerly looking forward to the opening of restaurants.

Restaurants are allowed to open for take away and curbside pickup. Currently, there is a curfew on weekend days between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

“It is a bit of restriction still on them having to close by 8 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. They depend a lot more than on one seating in a night as you know,” Clarke pointed out.

The private sector leader said based on discussions with some of the association’s members, some companies were allowing their employees to work from home, others have gone back fully to the brick and mortar operation, while others were testing a mixture of both.

“I think that you are seeing that people, especially the service-related type entities that don’t need to have customer-facing people, you are going to see more of them doing work from at home. They might be split with some at home and some in the building that need to have customer-facing employees,” he explained.

“But I think people are getting accustomed to working from home and some people love it and some do not for various reasons. I don’t think it is going to be an immediate overnight change but I think you will see some graduation where some of these people will not have the large office spaces and building spaces that they used to have, but a shared accommodation in the office buildings and work from home facilities that the individuals have,” he added.