Latest / Best of Business / Sylvie Thrush Marsh: MyHR Spokesperson on the sectors recording increased restructuring activity

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Sylvie Thrush Marsh: MyHR Spokesperson on the sectors recording increased restructuring activity · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B follow
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  Speaker 2: Turns out we've got a lot of BCME restructuring going on.
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  Speaker 2: This comes to us from a MYHR report first quarter
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  Speaker 2: of this year shows restructuring was at its highest level
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  Speaker 2: in two years HOSPO one hundred ninety one percent increase
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  Speaker 2: compared with Q four of last year. What's going on there?
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  Speaker 2: Sylvie Thrush Marsh is with MYHR and is with a
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Silbey Morning.
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  Speaker 3: Chill I, Mike, thanks for having me not.
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  Speaker 2: At all restructure to do? What good or bad? Are
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  Speaker 2: they saving themselves or growing?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a lot of saving themselves. Unfortunately, it would
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  Speaker 3: be no surprise to anyone who's been following the news
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  Speaker 3: likely that small businesses are under a lot of financial
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  Speaker 3: pressure and we're seeing that in the restructuring activity at
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  Speaker 3: the moment.
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  Speaker 2: The variability you're seeing from sector des sector is at vast.
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  Speaker 2: They can't all be at one hundred and ninety one
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  Speaker 2: percent like hospit can they No.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly the impacts things start really inconsistently right now, and
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  Speaker 3: that's part of what we were surprised when we looked
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  Speaker 3: at this data, so accommodation food service is, like you say,
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  Speaker 3: kind of record highs. Financial and insurance services their highest
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  Speaker 3: level of restructuring in two years. Still, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 3: wholesale trade, retail trade, and administrative and support services are
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  Speaker 3: all down this quarter. So we're seeing pretty significant macroeconomic trends,
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  Speaker 3: but it's not being felt consistently across the country.
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  Speaker 2: So what's happening in financial and insurance? What's going on there?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a couple of different stories there. So when
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  Speaker 3: we're looking at what's happening in the insurance sector, there's
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  Speaker 3: a few different things. Consumers are experiencing a pretty well
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  Speaker 3: documented cost of living crisis, and many of them are
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  Speaker 3: choosing to go with less insurance or fewer insurance policies,
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  Speaker 3: So pretty straightforward there. Interestingly, on the business side of things,
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  Speaker 3: since twenty nineteen, there have been year on year increases
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  Speaker 3: in a number of businesses being taken off the company's register,
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  Speaker 3: and each one of those is a customer who is
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  Speaker 3: lost for insurance providers. And on top of that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we've had I mean, the phrase unprecedented times is pretty
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  Speaker 3: well worn right now. There's been a lot of certainty
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  Speaker 3: for insurance using the insurance providers to deal with, and
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  Speaker 3: so that's affecting kind of the insurance landscape as well.
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  Speaker 2: How much of this is a wash up from what
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  Speaker 2: has been going on in the economy because if you
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  Speaker 2: look at the GDP, it was things were coming right.
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  Speaker 2: So is this the backwash of what was went wrong
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  Speaker 2: and is coming right or not?
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  Speaker 3: Yes? Spot on. There tends to be a lag in
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  Speaker 3: this kind of data because businesses can absorb some shocks, right.
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  Speaker 3: It's not like one thing happens that goes wrong in
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  Speaker 3: February and in March we see this massive spike. And
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  Speaker 3: we've had really really high interest rates for most of
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four. We've had ongoing
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  Speaker 3: shocks with tariff and with the document and disclosure of
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  Speaker 3: the strait of horn moves. There's been a lot going
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  Speaker 3: wrong for quite a long time now, kind of going
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  Speaker 3: back to COVID times, and so many businesses have been
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  Speaker 3: able to hold on through a couple of those challenges.
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  Speaker 3: We have a couple of recessions a few years ago,
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  Speaker 3: but we're kind of coming to the crunch point where
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  Speaker 3: a lot of these employers just don't have any gas
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  Speaker 3: left in the tank to hold on.
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  Speaker 2: So what are we doing? Are we killing ours? Are
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  Speaker 2: we killing head count? What are we doing?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a combination of those things. Restructuring can result
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  Speaker 3: in redundancies where people are losing their jobs, but at
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  Speaker 3: the moment, a lot of the feedback we're getting from
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  Speaker 3: small employers is that they're actually looking to reduce costs
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  Speaker 3: and kind of hunker down as much as they can,
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  Speaker 3: So that might look like dropping a shift over the
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  Speaker 3: course of the week, that might look like cutting hours
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  Speaker 3: rather than trying to cut jobs. And actually, about a
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  Speaker 3: month ago, we had a small employer who's a cafe
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  Speaker 3: owner who proposed to reduce her front of house staff
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  Speaker 3: from six employees to five employees. But her team came
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  Speaker 3: back and said, well, what if we all cut our
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  Speaker 3: hours a little bit, does that mean we can avoid
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  Speaker 3: anyone having to lose their job? And she went ahead
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  Speaker 3: with that proposal. So we're seeing employers definitely trying to
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  Speaker 3: be creative in the ways that they're reducing costs. They
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  Speaker 3: aren't reaching for the lever to try and make their
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  Speaker 3: staff redundant to the first protocol.
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  Speaker 2: Great insight. Nice to talk to you, appreciate it very much.
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  Speaker 2: Sylvie thrush Marsh, who's with my h quick question, when
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  Speaker 2: do we stop using the term cost of living crisis? Mind?
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  Speaker 2: What needs to happen literally before you no longer call
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  Speaker 2: it a cost of living crisis? Probably about the same
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  Speaker 2: time where you stop using phrases like back in COVID times.
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