Almost one in 10 transport companies have already made staff redundant, according to the results of a poll by solicitors Backhouse Jones.
Despite the furlough scheme being set up to avoid making large numbers of UK workers redundant, the snap poll revealed that 9% of respondents had already begun to reduce staff numbers due to Covid-19.
Jonathon Backhouse, director at Backhouse Jones, suggested that the figures showed that the furlough scheme was still preventing most companies from going down the redundancy route for the time being.
Recently, Eddie Stobart Logistics revealed it was preparing to make redundancies across its group due to the pandemic, with sources suggesting 100 jobs were at risk.
The Backhouse Jones survey also found that 51% of firms had forced employees to take holiday while on furlough.
In addition, 30% of transport companies said they were currently operating at less than 50% of capacity; 28% are operating at between 50-70% capacity and 43% are currently operating at more than 70% capacity.
Backhouse added: “That’s quite promising for the majority of the sector; with a bit of luck it will bounce back.”
