CEO intro
Hello to all,
Welcome to the RDAMIW Jan-Mar 2020 quarterly newsletter. Well, things are certainly different from our last newsletter back in Jan 2020. As everyone is aware, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and aligned isolation measures have had a profound impact on the MIW region.
Regional reporting by some of our industries is indicating a collective impact of over 5000 FTE jobs lost and over $220M of lost revenue, understanding this is a highly conservative estimate as it is limited to partial industry or sector surveys only. Analysis highlights a large impact on SME businesses within the tourism, accommodation and food services, education and training, and retail sectors, with lesser levels of current impact on other sectors. To date, larger businesses having more capacity to cover shortfalls in revenue have reported less impact on operations. It is clear that impacts across the region have varied between Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday sub regions and that as more restrictive isolation measures are introduced and overall timeframes of isolation extends, more impact across broader sectors is being felt and larger business are also now being impacted.
The impact on SME business and our regional economy should not be overlooked as, across the MIW region, 15,364 business are in operation and of these - 9,200 business are not employing people and 5,682 businesses employ less than 19 people. The statistics indicate that, on average, the region has just below 86,000 FTE jobs and SME businesses employ approximately 60% of the FTE workforce.
The release of a broad range of stimulus and support packages for business, employees and community have been implemented by government and the private sector - and these are starting to roll out to businesses and those that have lost their jobs. We understand that the application process can be tedious and complex to some of those seeking assistance and to this end, we encourage people to work with their employer and financial advisers and to contact the relative department and carefully read all the information available online. If following all this and you are still not satisfied with the responses, you can contact RDAMIW and we can see if we can be of any further help.
On a positive note, the region has experienced to date relatively low levels of COVID-19 infection relative to other locations and it seems nationally that current isolation practices are reducing infection rates. This has started broader discussions at national and local levels focusing toward economic recovery plans and operations from COVID-19. The region has also seen many examples of business innovation and new service delivery solutions, which even post COVID-19 are likely to remain a key feature of business products and services. Equally, the impact has seen an unprecedented move toward use of digital support services and into the future may support our region's ability to migrate jobs and skills toward jobs of the future.
RDAMIW hope our community stays well and safe over these challenging times
Robert Cocco,
RDAMIW CEO
|
