Small business owners miss out on Christmas break due to high cost of employing staff

472,000 small business owners will be working every day over the Christmas holidays without a single day off, according to a survey commissioned by business for sale marketplace Bizdaq.

The research, conducted by Opinium, found that almost half a million small business owners will be working every day over the Christmas holidays – including Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. A total of 2.8 million small business owners will be working in some capacity over the Christmas period.

Of the small business owners that will be working over Christmas, 34% said they were planning to work, as they couldn’t afford to take the time off. A further 17% of owners are unable to take time off as they do not have enough staff to cover this period.

The cost of finding, training and employing staff is holding back 2.3 million small business owners from hiring additional staff. Additionally, the National Minimum Wage and the Living Wage was cited as a growing reason for not being able to hire employees.

Holidays sacrificed throughout the year
Christmas isn’t the only time that small business owners are having trouble taking time off though, as over a third of small business owners (34%) have only taken 10 or fewer days of holiday in 2016. The average amount of holiday days taken was 17, which is still more than two weeks below the entitlement for an average full-time UK worker.

Sean Mallon, CEO of Bizdaq said “It is clear that small business owners are still being let down by successive governments. The hard work and effort put into running and building small businesses is not reflected in the government’s attitude towards them, despite employing more than 14.7 million people across the UK. There have been many initiatives created with much noise, however the delivery has often been poor at best.

“To see that more than 60% of small business owners won’t get a break over Christmas goes to show the dedication and passion they possess, and with 43% citing high taxes as a reason contributing towards having to work such long hours is very disappointing.”