The National Hair & Beauty Federation (NHBF) has published the results from its latest State of Industry survey, conducted across UK har and beauty salons and barbershops. The NHBF predicts boarded-up shop fronts, significant job losses and a major mental health and wellbeing crisis across the whole sector if the Government does not provide additional support. 

The most significant statistics are:

• 1 in 8 business owners (13%) had already made redundancies as a result of the pandemic
• 56% could not rule out further redundancies without government support when the furlough scheme ends. 1 in 9 (12%) were certain that redundancies would be likely
• 53% of respondents had cut staff hours in order to save costs. This rose to 61% when looking at the beauty sector alone
• 62% could not be sure their business would survive until the end of the financial year, with almost a third of that number (18%) explicitly sure they would have to close
• 2 in 5 (38%) of salons in the beauty sector were not earning enough to cover outgoings such as rent, overheads, staff costs and stock etc. Across the hair and beauty sector as a whole, only 2 in 5 are just about breaking even
• 1 in 11 (9%) had not received any financial support
• Only 4% were likely to take on new staff in the next 3 months
• Only 4% likely to take on apprenticeships despite recent government incentives

Richard Lambert, Chief Executive of the NHBF said, “The responses to the survey starkly show that the future of hair and beauty sector is bleak without targeted help from the government. Without this, we could be approaching the next financial year with boarded-up shop fronts, significant job losses and a major mental health and wellbeing crisis."

These results will be used to strengthen the push for more government financial support for hair and beauty businesses as an industry that contributes so much to the economy and wider society, but which has received none of the additional support measures offered to sectors such as leisure, hospitality, sport and the arts during this difficult time.

Please visit nhbf.co.uk for more information.