BackinBusiness : No Country for self-employed podcast

Professor Mark Hart, Deputy director of the ERC whose research shows many self-employed are slipping through the safety net joined the BackinBusiness team for this podcast alongside two self-employed people  to discuss the impact of the lockdown on their businesses,  Government loans and disappearing customers which are all  of concern at this time. Listen to… Read more

May 2020 Press Coverage

FT Online: UK’s emergency loans for small companies likely to bring rash of defaults, say bankers Evening Standard: More than 635,000 jobs at risk from disputed business interruption claims SME online: Ignoring mental health issues could cost firms millions Hereford & Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce: Lack of support for workers’ mental health “cuts firm productivity… Read more

Is small lending too big to fail? Covid-19 and P2P lending to SMEs

Over the last decade, the landscape of SME finance has changed dramatically. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, while traditional bank lending experienced a sluggish recovery, a new model of online marketplace (P2P) business lending emerged. Funding Circle, started in 2010, was the world’s first P2P platform to fund business loans and seemed to… Read more

UK companies facing COVID-19 “pincer movement”, data shows

 News release: 20 April 2020 New data shows a spike in limited companies going out of business – coupled with a big decline in new starts – has hit all regions and sectors since the start of March   New data suggests the UK economy is facing a worrying “pincer movement” due to the coronavirus pandemic,… Read more

Left in the cold: How company directors are excluded from the Government’s coronavirus support schemes

The Government’s various coronavirus support schemes aim to provide a safety net for both employees and the self-employed during the suddenly-imposed ‘lockdown’ period now affecting the UK economy. But while the headline measures announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak over recent weeks – including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS) aimed at employees, Coronavirus Business Interruption… Read more

The business effects of pandemics

Published today this ERC rapid review Insight paper considers the existing evidence on the business effects of pandemics, with a particular focus on the impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Evidence from previous pandemics is reviewed, and in addition, we provide an overview of early assessments of the emerging evidence on the business impacts… Read more

April 2020 Press Coverage

Wired.co.uk This is how coronavirus will upend the economy over the next year FT Online: Coronavirus claims thousands of UK businesses The Times: ‘Pincer movement’ threat to economy Reuters: UK company closures jumped in March as COVID-19 crisis grew MailOnline (from Reuters): UK company closures jumped in March as COVID-19 crisis grew The New York… Read more

London firms lead other European cities in crisis planning

Earlier this week a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the vulnerability of different groups of the population to unemployment following the current crisis. Businesses also vary in terms of their crisis planning and resilience, and research has shown that SMEs are less likely to connect risk identification and business planning activities, which… Read more