As the UK slowly moves out of lockdown and more industries start to open up, it’s time to explore how we can ‘bounce-back’ from coronavirus.
Despite the reopening of non-essential stores from 15 June, many retailers are still unsure what the future may hold, as they fear that a lack of demand and a continued absence of staff due to school closures could leave sales throughout July well below levels of a year ago.
This also comes following the news that many stores, including smaller independent retailers, have not re-opened their physical shops after suffering large financial losses due to the pandemic which forced them to close their doors three months ago.
According to a report by the CBI, only 21% of retailers said they expected business to be brisker in July 2020 than in the same month of 2019, while 68% predicted they would be lower.
Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief economist, said: “Despite retailers working flat out to make sure they are safe and ready to open their doors, outside the grocery sector most retailers expect sales to be far below where they were this time last year.
They added: “Enabling these businesses to open is a critical step on the road to restarting our economy and will help support hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK.”
Similar worries are being expressed by those working in the leisure industry, who are still uncertain how they can bounce-back from lockdown and safely re-open with some social distancing measures still in place.
