It is common news at this point that the ongoing coronavirus outbreak isn’t just affecting lives. The financial effects of the outbreak can be seen far and wide, not just on big public corporations, but small businesses as well. In such times, companies like Amazon, which can clearly bear the brunt of a few losses, have taken up the responsibility of helping out smaller companies that cannot. In an initiative to help small businesses prevail in these desperate times, Amazon has announced a $5 million relief fund.
The relief fund will be available for companies operating in the vicinity of Regrade and South Lake Union office buildings and will help businesses with less than 50 employees, reporting less than $7 million revenue annually.
In order to qualify for this relief package, the business has to have some connection with foot traffic and show proof of how coronavirus has affected their revenue. The businesses, which have to be open to the general public, will be asked about how much revenue they speculate to suffer in the month of March, and will have to provide proof to back their claims.
With the help of a third party administrator, Amazon will then review the applications in the second half of March and later start rolling out relief packages positively by April.
However, there is a direct relationship between Amazon’s generosity and the selection of companies. When Amazon set up its operations in the area, it drew a lot of other companies and new businesses to the location. Moreover, Amazon is still paying its employees as part of its work from home initiative and asking them to stay indoors if they can. Now that physical absence puts a stress on small businesses, like a donut shop, who thrive on physical presence of people. Thus, Amazon is trying to maintain its current neighbourhood, making sure businesses around its HQ don’t close down while its employees stay at home.
Amazon is just one of the many companies which are trying to curb the impact of the disaster that coronavirus is. Uber, Salesforce, Cisco, Microsoft, Lyft, Square, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Apple, have all made commitments to pay hourly and other contingent workers impacted by reduced staffing requirements. Google also provided $25 million in donated ad credit to WHO and government agencies. Alibaba, which is closer to the point of origin for the virus, has also pledged financial support for the falling chinese economy.
