30 August 2021
Covid-19: Southland Chamber joins National Call for Business Support
The Southland Chamber of Commerce is inviting businesses to join a national call for more business support.
The chamber has joined the National Chamber Network in petitioning the Government to extend its Resurgence Support Payment – a one-off payment designed to offer business support when alert levels are raised for more than seven days.
This comes as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Monday that Auckland would remain at alert level 4 for at least two weeks, while the rest of the country would be in alert level 3 from Wednesday until the following Tuesday.
Southland Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Sheree Carey said that while employees were protected by the wage subsidy, many employers were topping up 20 per cent of wages while trying to cover overheads, without any income.
“As the Government extends the lockdown, employers need the same recognition as employees,” she said in an email to members.
“It’s not just Auckland businesses that are struggling at the moment. It’s the whole country,” Carey told Stuff.
She would have liked to see Ardern’s briefing followed by more information about business support from Finance Minister Grant Robertson.
There was a growing sense of frustration among the business community around the way important information was being publicised in a “piece-meal” fashion, Carey said.
“We definitely need to be where we are,” she said of the lockdown, but added that government could have on Friday, for example, let businesses know to expect another week of restrictions.
For the most part, Southland businesses had been preparing for two weeks at alert level 3, and Carey thought some might be optimistic about the shorter timeframe.
Her advice to business owners trying to plan in the current climate was to plan for every possible scenario.
“That’s just where businesses have to be agile,” she said.
Published by Stuff.co.nz – 30 August 2021