Is your business or employer already affected by cost of living/downturn?

[PersonaNonGarter]

Just thinking about this. No-one I know seems to be concerned about their business or employer. Mainly most people seem to have loads of work and not enough employees.

But that doesn’t match up with all the doom on the news.

Has anyone noticed any effects of the cost of living crisis so far on their work?

Yes, I have closed my small business (sole trader) and am selling off stock currently. I just wasn't getting the numbers this year at events and things that I did last year and had to decide if I was going to close or continue to struggle on.

Not personally but a few local restaurants and takeaways have closed due to fuel cost increase, so that's at least a dozen people out of work now.

I work for a big multinational - think a household name manufacturer.
Sales are down massively, we have all been put on a spending ban, no new recruitments allowed and significant redundancies are happening (same applies for the UK and globally)

Thanks for replies. It just seems so strange that there are so many job vacancies at the same time. I definitely hadn’t heard of redundancies at all.

Our village bakery/pie shop closed a few weeks ago citing the increased overheads making it no longer sustainable.

Yes. Events business, so we were already hit by covid quite badly. We've started doing okay again, but a lot of the big ventures were training days-and they've discovered they can do it from home, so that's a good bit of income.
Now we're noticing people are pulling out because they can't afford to continue. We have a lot of charities using us, and it's always the first thing we see going in any downturn, they lose their funding.
It's really sad when you've seen a charity doing fantastic work have to stop doing what is really needed.

Turnover is considerably down on two of our three businesses.

I've closed another element of our business because I just won't know how to accurately price now for energy used at a later date.

Dd has been made redundant from her external job.

A huge business locally is closing because raw materials cost too much, this will impact nationwide on food production.

Its like whiplash - one moment everyone had savings from not spending in the pandemic, the next moment this.

I have a very small business (just me) and I can feel the effects already. I sell non-essentials, decorative products etc and I fear the next few months will completely close us down if sales don't improve closer to Christmas. I have very low overheads and a 9-5 thankfully but I can't imagine how other small businesses (especially with staff) feel.

Cost of fuel has done us no favours in the logistics business but generally business just increases as more people want more and more stuff delivered. Income is good but the company is driving to be collectively smarter about where the spending is going to offset the fuel costs.

I work for two different businesses & seeing one affected more than the other.
One has got a headcount freeze - so no new appointments but will replace existing positions, however, it is doing well in terms of customer purchases. I'm not concerned about this business as it's a major brand.
The other has lost a significant amount of customers in the past few months - end of their yearly contracts & not renewing. I am concerned about that one as it's incredibly niche & a hard sell at the best of times.
My job is relatively secure at business one, but business two is less so.

My job is normally counter cyclical, when the economy goes tits up we get more work.

The same isn't the case for the whole business but when the corporate deals and property transactions slowdown things like insolvency, debt recovery, personal injury claims, unfair dismissal claims, discrimination claims etc increase.

After a slow summer I have suddenly gone mega busy

I am a microblading and semi permanent make up artist

I literally am saving every penny I earn though and I also now do other work. As I really worry that people won't be paying to get brows etc once the bills go up 😞

I guess it depends on what industry you're in. Not seeing the effects at the moment but we were badly hit during the pandemic and because of Brexit so we're kind of in recovery.

Not so far, the cost of utilities will adversely affect us next year and we will need to increase our charges to cover this. However we are getting new clients all the time so we must be competitive at the moment. We've worked hard over the last 4 years to reduce our outgoings and diversify which has helped us cushion some of the blows.

Savings? Sadly there are many of us who have businesses that have barely recovered from the pandemic because we were forced to close then and were excluded from government support. Taking on debt was the only way we survived, both as businesses and personally. Many of us will not survive this next crisis - the music, hospitality and leisure industries will be particularly hard hit. It's going to be catastrophic.

Sole trader here. Hanging on until the end of the year as sales are massively down.

Brexit has killed my non uk sales.

Had to leave my premises just before covid hit due to the building being sold off for flats. Now work from home and there’s no way I am taking on another lease.

My freelance design side is ok for now.

I agree. I run a small accountancy practice. We've already lost about half our clients due to covid and lack of support/grants, and probably another quarter are just hanging on by their fingertips having to repay covid loans on top of increased overheads and raw material costs. It's very bleak.

Cost of living crisis has hugely affected our workload ! We offer benefits advice to older people and every man and his wife is trying to get pension credit/ Attendance Allowance etc at the moment. We are inundated. I know you were probably thinking increased costs but we have increased workloads. Lots of advice charities/ CAB etc all seem to be overwhelmed with everyone trying to secure extra help/ benefits/ grants/

Hopefully not jinxing it by posting this but ok so far

Definite downturn in Covid needing furlough to keep employees but building things together now

I think some sectors will be exposed to energy issues first though

Livestock farmer here.

Input costs have had a massive impact for us. We are so far ok but I do know of other farmers doing the numbers and seeing if it's worthwhile restocking.