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The Government has published the full list of businesses which benefited from the £80m paid out as part of its job retention scheme in the first six months of the pandemic, shining a light on covid's impact on some of the island’s most well-known brands.
The scheme was launched in April in order to protect jobs in businesses suffering from the financial impact of lockdown and wider disruption caused by the pandemic, and ensure Jersey is “in a strong position to recover when the crisis is over”.
In its first phase, the Government agreed to refund employers a maximum of £1,600 per employee (80% of a worker’s salary up to £2,000) per month, if they could prove "material detriment" - meaning they had seen a drop in turnover of at least 30% in 2020 or the same month in 2019.
Between March and August 2020, the Government helped a total of 67,137 islanders, costing £80,981,348.32. Its peak month was April, with 16,500 employees receiving payments of £21.5m.
Pictured: More than 67,000 jobs were supported by the payroll scheme in the first six months of the pandemic.
Any firm that signed up to benefit from the support was warned that the Government intended to “periodically publish appropriate information” about scheme claimants, including the name of the business, number of employees claimed for, and total amount claimed.
That data has now been compiled in a report and recently published on the Government website.
The report also includes the names of businesses, total claimed and number of employees supported for all employers who have received payments for at least two employees each month.
The idea of making the list of support claimants public had been floated by Guernsey’s Government in relation to their own payroll scheme, but was dropped amid pointed criticism from small businesses who said that having their finances put in the public domain would put them off claiming support.
The report shows that Jersey’s hospitality sector received the greatest amount of support overall - £21m, more than a quarter of the total awarded to businesses over the period.
Of the top 50 claimants, nearly half were hospitality businesses - 16 hotel/accommodation providers, and five dining groups.
Among them are some of Jersey’s most well-known brands, with Randalls and Liberation Group taking the largest payments under the scheme of around £1.04m and £952,000 respectively. The payments together supported nearly 600 individuals during the period.
Pictured: The two largest claimants were Jersey's two biggest pub chains, Randalls and Liberation Group.
The Royal Yacht received the highest payment of any hotel: £694,000, which supported between 61 and 195 workers across all six months.
A potential consequence of hotels’ struggles, commercial laundry services provider AngoraBesco received nearly £396,000 to support up to 59 staff.
Construction firms received the next largest chunk of support, £18m in total.
Dandara, the sector’s largest claimant, was given £486,283 to sustain up to 236 staff over three months, while materials provider Normans was awarded £452,000 to see up to 157 employees through April and May.
Wholesalers and retailers had their employees’ wages topped up to the tune of £12.6m between March and August.
Two of the sector's largest claimants were department stores De Gruchy (£588,000) and Voisins (£463,000) to help a combined total of nearly 300 employees. Car dealerships Jacksons and Spellbound Holdings Limited (operator of TrustFord) claimed £620,017 and £270,670 to support 142 jobs and 61 jobs respectively.
Pictured: Department stores De Gruchy and Voisins claimed the most of any high street retailers, supporting nearly 300 employees between them.
Lockdown’s impact on the retail sector may also account for the difficulties of Style Shopfitting, to which the Government paid £344,000 to assist up to 51 staff over five months.
The Airport’s ground handling firm Swissport received the third largest payment from Government - nearly three quarters of a million to support up to 105 staff over five months. In October, it was confirmed that the company would be laying off more than half of its workforce due to the pandemic’s impact on travel, which saw passenger numbers drop 90%.
Blue Islands, which signed a £10m deal with Government to protect the island’s air links in July, claimed around £405,000 across the six month period to support up to 61 of its workers.
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, which launched an emergency ‘Love Your Zoo’ appeal in June after the pandemic slashed its income by 80%, needed the highest level of payroll support of any local charity. It was given £390,000 over three months to help up to 131 staff.
Pictured: Durrell made the highest claim of any charity, needing £390,000 over three months to help up to 131 staff.
Jersey Hospice, which said its future was hanging in the balance in March, required £241,000 to support up to 80 jobs over four months.
The Government says in the report that updates to the data “will be released when possible, for example, for CFPS phase three and four together with other support schemes.”
Hotels, restaurants and bars - £21,016,279.45
Construction - £18,236,304.61
Wholesale and retail - £12,570,096.84
Education, Health and other services - £10,972,044.83
Miscellaneous business activities - £8,548,266.42
Transport and storage - £4,345,549.33
Manufacturing - £2,054,477.38
Information and communication - £1,106,303.78
Finance and legal - £1,100,726.28
Agriculture and fisheries - £771,243.64
Utilities and waste - £260,055.76
Randalls - £1,043,296.57, supporting up to 328 jobs over five months
Liberation Group - £952,246.89, up to 247 jobs over four months
Swissport - £748,897.91, up to 105 jobs over five months
Royal Yacht Hotel - £694,458.66, up to 195 jobs over six months
Jacksons (CI) Limited - £620,071.73, up to 142 jobs over three months
A De Gruchy and Co Ltd - £587,811.99, up to 145 jobs over six months
Hotel de France Limited - £573,816.36, up to 91 jobs over six months
St. Brelade’s Bay Hotel Properties Limited - £545,130.76, up to 87 jobs over six months
Modern Hotels (Holdings) Ltd - £492,040.21, up to 90 jobs over six months
Dandara - £486,283.10, up to 236 jobs over three months
Grand Holdings Ltd - £479,341.69, up to 94 jobs over six months
Voisins Department Store Limited - £462,983.29, 138 jobs over four months
JP Mauger Ltd - £455,288.14, up to 60 over five months
Norman Limited - £451,506.25, 157 jobs over two months
Seymours (Services) Limited - £448,041.36, up to 225 jobs over six months
Ferryspeed - £430,195.77, up to 142 jobs over two months
Hotel L’Horizon - £421,158.76, up to 78 jobs over six months
Blue Islands - £404,765.19, up to 61 jobs over five months
Angorabesco - £395,560.29, up to 59 jobs across six months
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust - £390,279.59, up to 131 jobs over three months
Pomme D’Or Hotel (1932) Limited - £375,459.30, up to 68 jobs over five months
Merton Hotel Limited - £367,336.81, up to 62 jobs over five months
Pentagon (Jersey) Wholesale Limited - £365,892.00, up to 87 staff over three months
Amalgamated Facilities Management Limited - £354,552.79, up to 168 jobs over two months
Longueville Manor - £351,671.88, up 73 staff over six months
Style Shopfitting Limited - £344,272.80, up to 51 jobs over five months
Les Ormes Golf and Leisure Village - £334.752.96, up to 45 jobs over six months
Casual Dining Services Limited - £332,380.66, up to 69 jobs over five months
Jersey Evening Post - £332,223.50, 79 jobs over three months
BG Romeril & Company Limited - £318,198.48, up to 112 jobs over two months
Radisson Blu - £317,396.81, up to 71 jobs over six months
JP Restaurants - £305,828 - up to 65 jobs, five months
Centre Point Trust - £281,793.17, up to 71 jobs over four months
Spellbound Holdings Limited - £270,670.21, up to 61 jobs over three months
The Sigma Group Limited - £267,895.63, up to 38 jobs over five months
Jayen Limited - £253,192.40, up to 43 jobs over three months
Hotel La Place - £246,373.66, up to 36 jobs over six months
La Petite Ecole Jersey Ltd - £246,128.19, up to 57 jobs over three months
The Club Hotel & Spa - £244,785.16, up to 42 jobs over six months
Jersey Hospice Care - £241,399.38, up to 80 jobs over four months
Cimandis - £236,690.73, up to 31 jobs over six months
Jersey Rugby Football Club (2016) Trading - £228,535,75, up to 49 jobs over four months
Airline Services (CI) Limited - £215,0032.86, up to 35 jobs over six months
Jersey Oyster Company Limited - £210,277.57, up to 31 jobs over six months
Pizza Express (Jersey Limited) - £207,074.25, up to 50 jobs over six months
AE Surcouf & Sons Ltd - £204,336.09, up to 36 jobs over five months
Hotel De Normandie - £203,535.10, up to 36 jobs over six months
AC Mauger and Son - £202,572.00, up to 31 jobs over five months
The Atlantic Hotel - £197,841.93, up to 41 jobs over five months
Gordon Electrical Services Limited - £195,210.00, up to 28 jobs over five months
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