The industry’s recovery from the Covid slump is underway and gathering pace, according to the BPIF’s latest Printing Outlook survey. Reporting on the Q2 findings the report concludes: “The forecasted strong recovery in the UK printing and printed packaging industry was realised in Q2.”
The period covered is compared to Q1 this year when lockdown restrictions were still in place and Q2 in 2020 when the first lockdown was in full force. Unsurprisingly there is confidence that recovery will continue through Q3, despite this being traditionally a quiet period for print. As well as holidays, printers say that pingdemic absences have made business challenging.
Other concerns that are mentioned are led by the rising costs and disruption in supply of substrates. And the ever present, pricing below cost, is again second most important concern for businesses, with the result that margins are being squeezed still further.
Looking to Q3, 50% anticipate an increase in output, 37% that they will maintain levels of output. “This is the most positive Q3 balance for 15 years,” says the report. Capacity utilisation continues to increase.
Despite this, the BPIF looks back to the financial crisis as the last time the printing industry suffered a collapse in business. Print, it says, never recovered the full turnover from that. “The current crisis is significantly more concerning and widespread than the financial crisis,” it says.
However, this is not yet leading to the loss of swathes of the industry (though of course only ongoing companies will be able to respond to this kind of survey). And while the final end of the furlough scheme is looming, the report says that few expect to suffer more job losses as redundancies have already been actioned.
The report expects that hybrid approaches to working will continue, some returning to the office for a number of days a week while continuing to work from home for the rest of the time as the gradual return to normality continues. There has been a return to client visits, with 42% saying that their sales reps are back on the road and two-thirds that they will welcome customers on site visits. All expect to be fully open by the end of the year.
