Economic Development Minister Lyndon Farnham has confirmed the move, which is due to feature two separate schemes and provide support for those firms which have been most severely damaged by government restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.
The news comes as the latest business tendency survey, released yesterday by Statistics Jersey, indicated some signs of growing confidence among Island businesses, particularly in the finance sector.
However, the report also flagged pessimism among some sectors, such as hospitality, where business activity is heavily expected to slump in the winter.
Senator Farnham said that the government was seeking to protect jobs and businesses ahead of the hoped-for recovery in the first half of next year.
‘The Council of Ministers has approved, in principle, two further support schemes, for hotels and accommodation, and for tourism attractions, events and other sectors impacted by the government restrictions,’ he said.
‘Some businesses have been negatively affected by what has happened in recent weeks and we want to introduce this support to protect both businesses and jobs.
‘We need to be prepared for the economic recovery, which is expected to happen next year, and we need to protect all of our business assets to take advantage of that.’
Large-scale support for struggling businesses has been provided by the government so far through the co-funded payroll scheme, under which staff wages were subsidised from the public purse.
‘The government support and the resilience of the Jersey economy has helped keep us in a relatively good position,’ said Senator Farnham.
The business tendency survey indicated that finance had growing confidence for the coming months.
At the end of September, 26% of firms in the Island’s largest sector expected their business activity to increase by the end of the year, with just 13% thinking the opposite would happen.
Confidence remained lower in other sectors, however, with 23% of non-finance firms thinking their business activity would improve, while 34% expected a decline over the next three months.
In the hospitality sector a net percentage of 71% of businesses expected their activity to decline going into the winter months.
Unemployment has continued to fall gradually in the Island since the peak of the lockdown, according to official figures, with the number of people registered as ‘actively seeking work’ with the Social Security Department dropping to 1,540 last week.
The figure reached its highest level of 2,670 on 24 May. Prior to the crisis around 900 people were generally registered as ASW.
Meanwhile, certain businesses and sectors, such as the aviation industry, have shown some signs of renewed vigour, with airline Jet2 announcing that it is launching five new routes to Jersey from the UK for next summer.
And this week the administrators of Flybe, which collapsed at the outset of the pandemic, announced that the troubled route operator could also be relaunched next year.
The Fiscal Policy Panel, the government’s economic advisers, has previously forecast that it expects the Island’s businesses to bounce back next year.
