Tuesday, 11 May 2021
South Australian business conditions have continued to climb despite restrictions, closed international borders and a lack of skilled workers.
The South Australian Business Chamber — William Buck Survey of Business Expectations for the March Quarter found that general business conditions experienced a significant 16.2 point rise from the December quarter to achieve 116.8 points, the highest result since the pre-GFC boom in December 2007.
Business confidence has also continued its upwards trajectory climbing 5.7 points to 114 points, a whopping 73 points higher than the March Quarter in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pleasingly, businesses also reported their highest sales and revenue in three years, with the majority of survey respondents reporting a return to at least 100 per cent of pre-COVID revenue by the end of the March quarter. It is clear that COVID-19 has forced owners to analyse their business model and to operate much more efficiently.
The South Australian Business Chamber CEO Martin Haese says: “Ahead of the Federal Budget being handed down tonight, it is encouraging to see such impressive results coming out of South Australia’s local economy.”
“It would seem that the further easing of restrictions towards the end of March, and the ramp up of COVID-19 vaccinations has provided South Australia with a ‘double dose’ of confidence to end the third quarter. However, conditions are forecast to ease slightly as we move beyond JobKeeper and with some restrictions still in place,” said Mr Haese.
Although businesses are showing promising results, the March Quarter Survey of Business Expectations once again demonstrated an acute shortage of skilled workers with 57.9 per cent of businesses finding it difficult to source skilled labour due to the closure of international borders, and government stimuluses such as JobSeeker resulting in potential workers remaining outside the workforce.
The South Australian Business Chamber, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Andrew McKenna says: “Governments need to continue prioritising the prompt rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine to ensure international borders can open as soon as is practicable and to get us out of the shadow of lockdowns.”
With JobKeeper ending in the March Quarter, the number of businesses remaining on the wage subsidy fell short of December estimates with just 19.4 per cent remaining at the end of March. At conclusion of JobKeeper, 15.2 per cent of those businesses reported redundancies.
Jamie McKeough, Managing Director of William Buck says: “The end of JobKeeper and the JobSeeker supplement in March did not result in the dip many predicted, and with the continued rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine across Australia, we remain hopeful that there will be less uncertainty around domestic border closures resulting in ongoing strong business confidence.”
