ASSOCIATIONS 13
Report : Covid-19 impact on IOPSA membership
By
Brendan Reynolds , Executive Director , IOPSA
Covid-19 arrived in South Africa in March 2020 to devastating effect . We are currently experiencing the third wave , which is once again impacting the country severely . South Africa has been in various stages of lockdown for around 16 months now and the impact on businesses has been severe . The plumbing industry has not been immune , and the impact has been mixed .
Plumbing businesses which operate in the construction / new build industry were extremely hard hit by hard lockdown , since then there has been a slow but steady recovery , it will take some time before these businesses get back to pre-Covid levels , but there is movement .
Plumbers who focused mainly on commercial and industrial maintenance have arguably fared the worst , business closures , work-from-home and lockdowns have seen their business dwindle . It remains to be seen what the long-term impacts will be but for now these businesses are struggling to survive . Conversely plumbing businesses which focus on domestic maintenance and renovations have been doing quite well , this is largely due to two factors , firstly more people are working from home and wanting to renovate or upgrade their homes , secondly with more people at home for longer periods , plumbing equipment tends to get used more often which leads to higher maintenance .
Essentially a lot of the commercial / industrial maintenance market has shifted to the domestic market due to people working from home .
On average IOPSA membership has grown by around 10 % per year for the past 7 years , however over the last 3 years membership has grown by 12-14 %. This year looks set to be even better . This is not necessarily an indicator of market growth but more , we believe , due to renewed confidence in the services that IOPSA offers its members .
Whilst cancellations have been relatively low , around 5 % for the years leading up to 2020 , we have seen an increase to around 7 % since March 2020 . Since March 2020 , IOPSA has been carefully monitoring the reasons for cancellations of memberships to gauge
COVID
Financial difficulties due to COVID-19 Closed Business closure – no reason given . Unpaid Unpaid fees – no reasons given . Unwanted No longer want to be IOPSA members .
Restructure Liquidation
Cancellation due to business restructure / no longer do plumbing work . Business currently in liquidation
Emigrate Business owner emigrated . Retire Business owner retired . Sold
PIRB
Business sold
1 member cancelled due to IOPSA ’ s association with PIRB .
Deceased Business owner deceased .
the impact of Covid-19 on the industry . The below graph illustrates the reasons given by members for cancellations from March 2020 to June 2021 .
Prior to 2019 IOPSA did not capture data on reasons for cancellations therefore accurate comparisons against previous years is difficult .
September 2021 Volume 27 I Number 7 www . plumbingafrica . co . za