Shropshire firms in 'survival mode' as employers warn of job losses following ‘business bashing’ Budget
Jobs will be lost and companies could cease trading in the new year as Shropshire employers wrestle with the financial implications of the Government’s ‘business bashing’ Budget, it has been claimed.
Those were the biggest concerns raised in the latest quarterly economic survey from Shropshire Chamber of Commerce, which revealed some of the most downbeat forecasts from the business community since the Covid pandemic.
In the survey, those asked about the autumn Budget’s impact on the local business community, 72 per cent described it as negative, and not a single employer felt it was positive.
The proportion of businesses now seeing taxation as a ‘fear factor’ in the coming months has jumped by a huge 40 per cent, and there has been a 14 per cent fall in businesses reporting rising sales.
The survey, carried out in the weeks after the Budget and covering the final three months of 2024, found that more than a quarter of firms were seeing credit terms getting worse, while around a third said bad debts were on the rise.
