In its latest trend survey, the Association for Media and Event Technology asked about the mood in the industry. According to this, more than 80 percent of companies have been using short-time allowance since the beginning of the crisis. At around 55 percent, 70 to 100 percent of the employees were on short-time work. Only a few have ended short-time work in the meantime, it says from VPLT. And if so, then there will be employee brain drain.
Around 40 percent of the companies stated that they have since lost employees. The reasons given are a lack of prospects or insufficient earnings in short-time work. Around 24 percent said that they will have to lay off employees in the foreseeable future,
At the same time, government aid is apparently not enough for companies. About two thirds are entitled to apply for bridging aid I, II or III, it is said. Most of the time, the money was paid out within 4 to 20 weeks. However, 50 to 60 percent of the respondents said that they did not have enough money for all the aids they asked, including November Aid, November Aid Plus, December Aid and December Aid Plus. 27 percent have applied for and received a KfW loan.
The association sees the results as evidence of the demand for a special program for the industry. Politicians must finally become aware that no industry is in lockdown as long as the event industry, says Linda Residovic, Managing director of the VPLT.
It still fails because of the political will to provide the self-employed sole proprietorships with suitable help, even though they too got into this precarious situation through no fault of their own. “And our proposal would help companies to continue to fully reimburse social security contributions, especially for the event industry. In this way, they could overcome their current lack of prospects and gain more planning security again, ”continues Residovic.
Most of the respondents are currently assuming a possible restart of the event industry in 2022, some by the end of 2021. Many do not expect normal business activity until 2023 to 2026. Nevertheless, 80 percent want to remain loyal to the industry. 30 percent said, however, that they will train less in the future.
For the study, the association interviewed company managers, independent sole proprietorships and employees from the areas of operators, dealers, manufacturers, personnel service providers, system integrators and technical service providers.
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