b'COVID-19 SURVEY REPORTA cloudy economic future contains a silver lining for manufacturers .By Dennis Spaeth down 20%. A quarter of respondents said business was about the same.A lthough the pandemic continues to cloud theUnfortunately, 46% of respondents said the pan-worldwide economic future, results from Cuttingdemic had triggered layoffs or furloughs at their com-Tool Engineerings 2020 Benefits and Salary Survey re- panies.veal a silver lining for manufacturers: Nearly 80% of re- Beyond the overall results, analyzing the data ac-spondents said their companies were considered es- cording to certain demographics reveals a tougher sential businesses and remained open during lock- time for tool, mold and die shops, as well as for busi-downs in spring. nesses with fewer than 20 employees or for those lo-Of the 277 respondents who completed the COVID- cated in the West.19 addendum to CTEs biennial salary survey, 219 saidBroken out by company size, company type and re-their companies remained open for business. Amonggion, the following results highlight the most significant the companies that remained open, 68% were fullydifferences from CTEs nationwide data.open while the rest were open on a limited basis.Asked how current production compared with theCompany Sizeworkload prior to the pandemic, almost half reportedAmong companies that employ up to 19 people, a 40% to 80% drop while a fifth said business was73% remained open in May while nearly 60% reported COVIDAnalysis.indd 50 7/22/20 10:50 AM'