Gym employees will hold a protest on Wednesday afternoon (5 August) as the industry faces a prolonged closure under South Africa’ lockdown regulations.<\/p>\n
FitSA’s Grant Austin told eNCA that the fitness and gym industry now faces significant job losses, with a number of employees not receiving any pay since the end of March.<\/p>\n
Austin said that as many as 29,000 jobs are at stake, with nearly a third (31%) of all industry players announcing retrenchment. He added that 14% of these companies completed these retrenchments by the end of July.<\/p>\n
About 48% of gyms have indicated that if they do not open soon they will close and never reopen, he said.<\/p>\n
Austin said that gyms and the fitness industry were particularly important as obesity was one of the key co-morbidities when looking at coronavirus deaths.<\/p>\n
“Gyms are quite a special environment. We are used to sanitising, we have access control and we can screen out people that are high-risk.<\/p>\n
“Under 5% of our members are over 65. As an industry, we have also developed system protocols and it is easy to social distance\u00a0 – we just take equipment out of the gym.”<\/p>\n