On the Canadian side so I’m not sure how our recent legislation differs.
Up here the government is forcing businesses to close their doors 3-4 weeks if they’re non-essential. We can can weather 3 weeks and continue paying leave to the few employees we have. After that we’re out of money to rent, wages, & utilities without any government assistance.
Small business don’t exactly sit on warchests of cash, especially if they have business loans to pay off.
I might be biased here, but I’d prefer to maintain existing employees then lay them off and try hiring when this is over, but no one can even see if we’ll actually be able to reopen in 3 weeks. How long will this take? No one really knows. If this lasts 3 months and the economy is still at a halt, we’re in even worse shape as now we’re bled of cash and on top of that have a bunch more debt.
Also at a small Canadian business, and I think the vagueness on timeline and 'stimulus/bailout' is intentional. It seems very likely (>50%) this will stretch out at least to June, and the government appears to be trying to avoid a huge rash of layoffs.
My take is that the government is trying to get businesses to take on debt and essentially fund stimulus spending. My advice is not to count on being back in business in three weeks.
Sorry for the dour view, but I hope you can make it through; this is going to be tough for a lot of us.
> On the Canadian side so I’m not sure how our recent legislation differs
The government is paying anyone who's income is impacted (even self-employed) $2k a month for four months... so individuals are getting monetary support.
Up here the government is forcing businesses to close their doors 3-4 weeks if they’re non-essential. We can can weather 3 weeks and continue paying leave to the few employees we have. After that we’re out of money to rent, wages, & utilities without any government assistance.
Small business don’t exactly sit on warchests of cash, especially if they have business loans to pay off.
I might be biased here, but I’d prefer to maintain existing employees then lay them off and try hiring when this is over, but no one can even see if we’ll actually be able to reopen in 3 weeks. How long will this take? No one really knows. If this lasts 3 months and the economy is still at a halt, we’re in even worse shape as now we’re bled of cash and on top of that have a bunch more debt.