April 2020 COVID-19 Survey Results
A few weeks ago, we asked our clients to take part in our survey to help us analyse the impact of COVID-19 on turnover and staff costs. Thank you to all of those who replied, and we are now able to share the results.
Although we did not obtain a very large sample of data, we thought that the results were both interesting and useful. We have not therefore broken the data down between small animal, large animal, equine, etc., but we will do so in future updates if there is enough data.
It was great to see that if we total every practice’s turnover for March 2020 compared to 2019, turnover was 2% higher, indicating that there was growth in the run-up to the pandemic. If we just look at practices where a reduction in turnover was seen, then the average percentage decrease was 11%, with the largest decrease being 35%.
In April 2020, which is where the turnover reduction really started to come through, turnover was down by 27% on average on April 2019, the largest decrease being 63%. If we compare April 2020 turnover to February 2020, i.e. the last ‘normal’ month, then the average decrease was 33%.
We have also looked at staff costs. We have only included the cost of those employees still working i.e. not the furloughed employees. We have also not made any adjustment for those who are owners of the business.
If we assume that the staff costs for February 2020 were the costs for a normal month, then our data shows that the staff costs fell by 1.4% in March and 35% in April, i.e. in line with the turnover decrease comparing April to February.
The figures do not take into account any hours worked by owners or indeed additional hours worked by employees who may not have received overtime, in order to ensure the practice is safely operational.
Just a reminder, it is difficult to be conclusive on these results as it is a small data set, but useful nonetheless.