Engineers and the effect of Covid19

It is well established that some companies will do well from the Covid pandemic but some will suffer a lot. What follows are some extracts from the diary of a friend and associate who has run his own successful engineering consultancy for the last 30 odd years.

"19 March 2020 Looks like we'll be locked down for Covid 19, need a strategy for getting through the next few months. Need to cut costs to a minimum and review our order book. Try to spread it out. New orders might be difficult to secure. Maybe staff would be happy to work from home? Perhaps suggest a salary reduction. With savings in tax, NI, travel and other minor expenses it may not impact take-home pay too much.

30 March 2020 Staff accepted small reduction in salaries and working from home. Some furloughed to help order book to spread out over time. First week looked ok.

23 April 2020 Virtually no enquiries since lock-down and no new orders. The order book is still reasonably healthy. Glad we furloughed some of the staff, so that the order book will go further. Still incurring substantial costs like rent to retain office and all that's in it, software licenses and other costs. Running up debt- HMRC and some others. Just storing up problems for the future. I'm not doing much productive work. Too busy keeping communication going with the guys and making sure they are well and have what they need for their work.

2 June 2020 Order book beginning to run out, although we have picked up some new work, it is nothing near enough. About 25% of what we need with current staff. Need to furlough a few others.

30 June 2020 Glad we furloughed those other guys. We might survive for about another two months. Hope the market picks up and that clients are able to pay or else we ill have to close-up shop. That will be a disaster."

The engineering profession probably has it better than most. Retail, the performing arts and some transport operators have it much worse. It is impossible to avoid feeling sorry for all of them.