Zoran Jovanovski: 86.2 percent of companies said they would not dismiss employees

Nearly half or 48% of the companies will not send the workers on forced leave, 19% plan to send them on forced leave, 19% have already sent workers on forced leave and 13% of the companies are considering other option, shows a survey conducted from 7-14 April by the Economic Chamber of Macedonia aimed at analyzing the impact of coronavirus on businesses.

In regard to dismissal of workers, 86.2% of respondents said they would not dismiss employees, 13% said they plan to dismiss employees and only 0.8% said that they have already fired their employees. This shows that entrepreneurs are aware of the importance of the workforce, in which it is invested for further successful operation of enterprises, and accordingly on the need to keep workers, Zoran Jovanovski, member of the Chamber’s Management Board said in the video statement.

According to the survey, in terms of finances, 44% of companies do not have liquidity problems, while 56% said to have liquidity shortages. In addition, 65% of the companies have repayment loans, while 35% do not have repayment loans. A total of 81% of respondents reported a certain percentage of cancellation of the arranged contracts or operation of the enterprise.

Despite the business challenges that companies deal with in terms of production, exports, imports, turnover and supply chain, 71% do not consider closing the company, and 21% consider closing only part of the company. Only 8% said that would close entirely the businesses, Jovanovski said.

Thirty percent of surveyed companies plan to use the measure – MKD 14,500 per employee for April and May, for companies affected by the crisis or 50% of the cost of contributions for each employee. 12% of companies will use the measure – offer of banks for loan repayment deferment, reprogramming, grace period, more favorable interest rate, etc. 7% of the companies plan to use zero-interest loans offered by the Development Bank of Macedonia and 7% said to use the measure EUR 50 million low-interest loans offered by Development Bank of Macedonia, Jovanovski noted.