Up here the government is forcing businesses to close their doors 3-4 weeks if they’re non-essential. We can can weather 3 weeks and continue paying leave to the few employees we have. After that we’re out of money to rent, wages, & utilities without any government assistance.
Small business don’t exactly sit on warchests of cash, especially if they have business loans to pay off.
I might be biased here, but I’d prefer to maintain existing employees then lay them off and try hiring when this is over, but no one can even see if we’ll actually be able to reopen in 3 weeks. How long will this take? No one really knows. If this lasts 3 months and the economy is still at a halt, we’re in even worse shape as now we’re bled of cash and on top of that have a bunch more debt.