The love of all things local has diminished over the length of the survey, with our high numbers of manufacturing workers falling as the last car makers and up to a third of component suppliers leave the state or shut down.
The survey, which has been South Australia’s longest running poll on business concerns and expectations, has provided a reliable reflection of the state’s economic conditions since 2002.
What is clear that despite some peaks and troughs, including a post GFC bounce in late 2009 which saw the state reach the highest rate of business confidence in 15 years, the confidence metric has been on a downward trajectory since the early 2000s.
While businesses are often more confident than what actually pans out, the survey has found actual business conditions have declined at an even sharper rate than confidence, with a clear drop off since the GFC despite a recent lift over the past two years.
Since its growth in the 1950s and 60s as a national manufacturing hub, the state’s focus is now high tech medical production, aged care, job creation through the National Disability Insurance Scheme, tourism and hospitality, agriculture and public sector employment.
In 2002 the population barely nudged 1.52 million, and now sits at 1.7 million. The unemployment rate in September 2002 was 6.1 per cent, slightly higher than today’s 5.8 per cent. A peak in the middle when the GFC hit caused job losses in sectors including technology, finance and banking.
Back in 2002, there were 471,000 South Australians in full time jobs, now there are 528,000. Over the 15-year period full time employment has grown by just 11 per cent in South Australia, compared to 28 per cent nationally. Times are changing, as more people work part-time and we move towards a gig economy where people have several jobs.
The GFC has had the most significant impact on the state’s economy since 2002, with a mass tightening of the purse strings. Fewer people bought cars and locally-manufactured white goods and electronics. Following the GFC employment moved from manufacturing and farming to health care and social assistance, professional and technical services.
Retail has remained steady, but faced with online trade and the rise of giants including Amazon, shop fronts are changing.
We may not feel wealthier, but average weekly full-time earnings in South Australia have almost doubled – from $821.40 per week in May 2002, to $1499.70 in May 2017.
Houses were much cheaper back then too – with the average housing price in Adelaide being $180,000. Then the property boom hit, and the average peaked at $460,000 this March.
Back then our major exports were cars, wine, wheat, metals, aquaculture, and meat products, destined for the Middle East, the US, the European Union, Japan and the UK.
Cars are no longer our biggest export, replaced late last year with wine and other alcoholic beverages, copper and its concentrates, wheat and meat. Agriculture remains a mainstay.
Our prime export markets have also diversified, with China now being our number one partner, followed by the US, Malaysia, India and Japan.
We’ve grown from three major universities to five and counting, with Carnegie Mellon and University College London moving to Adelaide in 2006 and 2010. Our local universities have embarked on massive infrastructure spends and opened new and rival departments including faculties of law and medicine.
We are also getting older. In 2002 South Australia already had the highest median age – of 37.9 years – and it now sits at 40, two years older than the national average.
Labor has been in power the entire time, but we’ve had two premiers and five Opposition leaders.
Trams came back to the city in 2007 and tracks are being extended for the second time. Light rail has reached the southern suburbs but not the north. We’ve seen high rises, new educational and research buildings, and a long-awaited hospital to replace the ageing Royal Adelaide.
The latest the South Australian Business Chamber – Statewide Super Survey of Business Expectations has been released today, which provided organisations with their chance to have their say on the shape of the state and where to from here. Businesses have lifted their collective voice and while they are more confident than last quarter, they are still calling for help and need conditions to improve.
