KUALA LUMPUR: Workers’ payroll stuck out like a sore thumb in a survey by the Statistics Department to gauge the impact of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on companies and businesses.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the issue dominated the challenges faced by the majority (66.7%) of the respondents at 76.6%, followed by the absence of customers, at 65.5%.
Of the respondents, 43.4% were micro-enterprises, 40.4% small-sized firms, 9.1% medium-sized firms and 7.2% large companies.
“More than half of the respondents (53.4%) said they could only sustain one or two months of operations if they have to pay full or half salaries to their employees during the MCO.
“For 67.8% of the respondents, income was nil; 12.3% said they earned through online sales and services; and 9.8% derived theirs from sales at physical premises and shops,” Mohd Uzir said in a statement today.
The survey also found that 88.8% of the respondents from the category of private limited companies were struggling to pay salaries to their workers.
For individually-owned businesses, 70.7% said the main challenge was having no customers at all.
Mohd Uzir said 42.5% of the respondents estimated that it would take more than six months for their businesses to recover if Covid-19 could be curbed.
He said 28.7% estimated that they needed four to six months to revive their business while 1.9% were pessimistic about ever being able to recover, which may force them to close down.
The survey found that 68.9% of the respondents used their savings as the main source to cover operational costs and working capital throughout the MCO, 19.8% resorted to loans while 11.3% depended on capital injection.
Two major forms of assistance that the companies and businesses deemed crucial were financial aid and subsidies from the government (83.1%) and reduction in company tax rate (67%). – May 8, 2020, Bernama
