Diary of a Shopkeeper, 14th June
What would Orkney feel like if 1,000 people lost their jobs before Christmas? What about 2,000?
These figures may sound preposterous, but economists are predicting that between three and six million people will be made redundant across the UK. Apply the same percentage to Orkney’s workforce, and figures of one to two thousand seem all too likely.
If anything, Orkney could be hit worse than the national average. We’ve got used to making a lot of money from tourism, and last year’s total visitor income of £67 million will be reduced by a huge percentage. 80%, maybe? Even if it’s only reduced by 60%, that’s still over £40m we earned between us last year that we won’t get this year.
In case you’re wondering, that’s the equivalent of £1,800 for every man, woman and child in the county.
We’re generally a seasonal economy anyway. Farming and fishing (still our biggest employers) are busiest from spring to autumn. Builders must do outside construction in the fine weather so they can do inside work in the winter. Most retailers have a string of quiet months from mid-September to mid-April, with the only positive upwards blip being December.
If Orkney doesn’t have a good summer, it doesn’t have a good year. And this is looking like the worst summer for centuries – since 1706, according to the Bank of England.
If all these figures and percentages are making your eyes glaze over, I don’t blame you. I must admit I find them so scary it’s hard to focus on them sometimes. Anyway, it’s not the figures themselves that we should be concentrating on, it’s the human stories behind them.
If 1,000 people lose their jobs, how will they pay their rent or mortgage?
Orkney is a spread-out rural community; if 1,000 people lose their jobs, how are they going to afford petrol to take their kids about, or do the shopping?
Orkney is a cold climate; if 1,000 people lose their jobs, how are they going to afford the high prices we already pay to heat our homes?
If 1,000 people lose their jobs, are they all going to wait around here, and hope things get better in 2021 or 2022?
Or will they and their families go south in search of work?
Will they ever come back?
I’m asking these questions, because I don’t have the answers. Neither central nor local government has the answers either. The scale of the economic crisis about to hit us is so vast that there are no ready answers in the Government in Hard Times handbook.
The answers have to be worked out from scratch. They have to be very big, and very creative, and they have to come very fast.
The government’s furlough scheme has made an enormous difference to millions of people across the country. Nine million, to be exact, who would otherwise have lost their jobs as their employers were told to close, are instead receiving 80% of their wages.
But full furlough ends on 1st August, and tapers off gradually until the end of October, at which point employers must once again pay 100% of their staff’s wages. How are they going to do this if they are, say, a hotel or restaurant, that’s had no income for six months? How about if they’re a retailer dependent on summer trade? Or a food producer that exports to overseas markets that have suddenly snapped shut, tight as a clam?
There’s no getting away from it. An economic cataclysm is going to hit us sometime between 1st August and 31st October. What should the Westminster and Holyrood governments be doing for the country as a whole? What should Orkney Islands Council be doing for our proud but fragile community?
PS This diary appeared in The Orcadian on Thursday 18th June, and on Saturday 20th the paper’s website carried a report on a survey carried out by business organisations across Orkney. You can read it here: https://www.orcadian.co.uk/orkney-businesses-fear-massive-crash-in-local-economy/ The figures for job losses I mention above were based on working out what national averages would mean if applied to our community. The survey forecasts are even worse: around 1,700 full-time and 1,500 part-time jobs could go.
Covid-19 at first appeared to be a health issue, and it’s true that nothing is more important than lives lost or severe suffering inflicted due to the virus. What has become clear is that it is also an economic issue that could harm the lives of far more people than have been directly affected by coronavirus. In Orkney, the coming crash will threaten the welfare of every single person.
I expect The Orcadian will cover the survey results in more detail in this Thursday’s paper. Maybe I should write a humorous column this week to balance that depressing news. Sometimes it’s hard to think of funny stories…and it would have to be extremely funny to come close to balancing out the horror of the economic forecasts.
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 18th June. Other diaries will appear weekly as long as I don’t depress the editors too much with entries like this one. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.