Big Freeze costing firms E630m a week

Friday, December 03 12:20:32

The current Big Freeze is costing Irish businesses around E630m a week, according to a survey from employers group, IBEC today.

It found that absenteeism is costing E170m a week, retailers are losing E170m a week, other service providers are losing E200m a week and losses to manufacturers is running at E130m.

"This is one of busiest times of year for companies and the adverse weather has had a very negative impact on production, sales and cash flow. While the cost has been substantial, it would have significantly higher were it not for the improved response from Government and local authorities," said IBEC Director of Policy Brendan Butler.

The survey found that over half of businesses rate the response to the adverse weather conditions as good or very good at both national (56.2pc) and local (51.1pc) government level. This is a significant improvement on how business rated the response last January, when few businesses rated the national government (16pc) and local authority (31pc) response as good or very good.

Better clearing and treatment of major roads and improved public transport resulted in less than 9pc of staff being absent due to weather conditions, compared to a figure of 13pc last January. However, it should be noted that the survey was carried out in the first half of the week, it is reasonable to assume that absentee levels and the cost to business would have increased significantly as weather conditions worsened, IBEC said.

However, it said that it should be stressed that much of the cost will be recovered over the coming weeks as business returns to normal, especially given that firms have significant spare capacity. Most of the 'costs' are actually sales/production postponed rather than sales/production lost permanently. This is not the case for all businesses however, and many retailers, for example, have experienced a significant fall in sales, which will not be recovered.

"It is important that everyone, including business, plays their part in ensuring that the economic costs are minimised. Insofar as possible, owners and occupiers of buildings in urban areas should clear snow off footpaths. It is unrealistic to expect councils to have all the necessary resources required. It is encouraging that government and local authorities seem to be coping better than earlier in the year, although there is still room for improvement," Mr Butler said.

The survey also found that late arrival of staff was one of the main issues with 83pc of respondents either having major or slight difficulties in this area, while over half the respondents had difficulties either delivering goods to customers (51pc) or having goods delivered to their own businesses (54pc).

Over two-thirds (68pc) of respondents experienced difficulties in their ability to travel to their own customers and almost six out of ten (59pc) respondents experienced difficulties in relation to sales.