According to a survey by the Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Similar Establishments of Portugal (AHRESP), approximately 36% of the catering companies questioned stated that they will have to file for insolvency, while a further 46% said that they were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and exploring insolvency possibilities.
The data, resulting from 12 monthly surveys carried out between March 2020 and February 2021 with AHRESP members, received more than 13 thousand responses, and according to Pedro Carvalho (AHRESP), on average, over the last year 40% of catering and similar companies have reported an annual drop in monthly revenue of over 80%, and about half declared they were unable to cover their operating costs.
With regard to the payment of wages, due to the huge drop in turnover recorded during this 12-month period, more than 17% of the catering and similar companies stated that over the last several months, they were unable to pay their employees’ wages, while a further 14% said they had only paid part of what they owed. In other words, more than 30% of the workers were either paid something or nothing at all.
In terms of employment, the association’s analysis shows that after the summer period, redundancies soared by 27%.
The tourism sector is said to also be in a similar situation.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
