Press Statement

Preasráiteas

03 February 2021

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (03 February 2021) launched a new survey to measure the impact that the COVID-19 crisis had on Small and Medium Sized enterprises (SMEs, defined as those employing less than 250 employees) last year in Ireland. The survey is being sent to a sample of 13,000 businesses across the full range of business sectors and the information is being collected between Wednesday 03 February and Monday 01 March.

The companies selected will receive a letter from the CSO with relevant details and are asked to complete an online questionnaire which should take no longer than 10 to 15 minutes.

In addition to the core survey, two modules, one aimed specifically at the retail sector and the other at the tourism sector, will be included in the electronic questionnaire being sent out. Larger enterprises in these two sectors will be included.

Commenting on the introduction of this new survey, Colin Hanley, Statistician, said: “The CSO is appealing for all of the sampled businesses to complete the survey so we can get a better picture of the impact COVID-19 has had on SMEs. Low response rates affect the quality of the information collected.

By completing the survey, businesses will be helping the CSO to produce important statistics on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on SMEs and will provide additional information on the retail and the tourism sectors. This information matters, for the business community, for policy makers and for society in general. The survey asks how the COVID-19 crisis affected your business in 2020 and what steps you took as a result – e.g. in relation to the level of business, workforce and organisational changes, access to finance and availing of Government support schemes.

The CSO understands the severe difficulties being faced by everyone. We would like to thank all survey respondents for their support to date. However, it is only by collecting survey information that we can accurately report the effects COVID-19 is having on our economy and society.

Companies in the survey are asked to complete the online questionnaire between Wednesday 03 February and Friday 01 March.”

All information collected in the survey is confidential and will be used only for statistical purposes. The results which the CSO will publish from the survey will be in aggregate form and will not identify any individual company.

For further information about this survey, your Data Protection rights and how your data is used, please see the contact information below.

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