The majority of the economic situation is expected to ease this year; three out of four companies start the new year with positive expectations.
Around 60 percent of Austrian companies rate the year 2020 as positive overall from a company perspective, despite Corona, short-time work and sales losses, around three quarters start with positive expectations – this is the result of a survey by the creditor protection association KSV1870, which the KSV at the end of the second lockdown performed among 600 companies in December 2020. Her main concern is the “uncertainty as to when the Covid-19 crisis will end”.
Although six out of ten companies rated the past year as positive overall, on the other hand 40 percent see it much more negatively, including 13 percent even “very negative”.
The economic effects of the first two lockdowns were equally negative for around a third of companies. For a quarter, the second lockdown was less dramatic than the first, while Lockdown I and II had no financial impact on 17 percent of the establishments. 8 percent report that the two lockdowns had a positive effect on their finances.
A little more than half of the companies expect the economic situation to ease this year, but 27 percent do not expect this to happen until the third quarter of 2021 at the earliest. Another 27 percent are looking hopefully to 2022, while 11 percent are convinced that there will be no economic easing until 2025 at the earliest.
For 52 percent, the uncertainty of when the corona crisis will end is currently the biggest concern. This is followed by the risk of Covid 19 infection for employees at 40 percent and the uncertainty of how things will continue after the pandemic from a business and economic point of view (38 percent). In addition, the delay in payment by customers (32 percent) and the fact that employees (again) have to be put on short-time work (25 percent) cause serious headaches.
