Exclusive: Almost half of London SMEs planning to hire this year
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Just under half (42 per cent) of London SMEs plan to hire in the next 12 months.
This is more than anywhere else in the country bar the North West (54 per cent), according to Barclaycard research.
Firms are looking forward to a sales boost this weekend with one in 10 London businesses (11 per cent) expecting the weekend to be the busiest bank holiday of the last decade.
London firms were slightly less optimistic about the coming August bank holiday than the rest of the nation while 13 per cent of businesses predicted record sales.
One in five (19 per cent) London businesses said they expected to see growth in revenue this weekend.
A third (34 per cent) of the capital’s SMEs said a good bank holiday would boost business morale as national concern about the pandemic’s impact was at its lowest since February 2020.
Customer numbers are equal or higher to before the pandemic for two thirds of retail businesses, the seventh quarterly Barclaycard Payments SME Barometer suggested.
Rob Cameron, CEO of Barclaycard Payments, said: “Small and medium sized businesses hold such a significant position in the UK, accounting for around three fifths of the nation’s employment and half of the turnover in the UK private sector.
“The success and optimism we are seeing from this segment is an excellent gauge of how the wider economy is performing – and from that it’s terrific to predict that a bumper August bank holiday looks set to be on the cards.”