A survey conducted by the January Sensis Business Index last week revealed certain Australian businesses and sectors are feeling strained with the end of JobKeeper in sight, however, the hospitality sector may be an exception.
The survey was conducted on 1000 small businesses across Australia, within 10 different business sectors.
The testing was done in the last week of January, with 22 per cent of business stating they had 50 employees or more with 10 per cent indicating they had been operating for more than 10 years.
Last year’s introduction of the Federal Governments JobKeeper, a form of wage subsidy for employers, helped thousands of businesses stay afloat during COVID.
Conducted on data insights platform Glow, the results showed that in November, 29 per cent of business owners thought JobKeeper would have a major impact on their business growth with an increase to 31 per cent in December and 39 per cent in January.
Fifty-one per cent of business owners said it would have a moderate impact, with only 10 per cent stating it would make no difference.
“We can see over just three months that the attitude of business owners has changed” Sensis CEO John Allan comments.
“Since taking the survey in January, where 56 per cent of small-medium businesses felt the loss of JobKeeper would have a major impact, Perth has gone into a five-day lockdown and new restrictions have been introduced in Victoria. This is likely to exacerbate the loss of business confidence in both states and dent the performance of the local economy.”
Surprisingly, however, the hospitality sector saw a decrease from 37 per cent in December to 21 per cent in January in whether the end of JobKeeper would have a major impact on the business. Construction also saw a decrease from 27 per cent in December to 25 per cent in January.
While that is good news for the hospitality and construction sector, Sensis says the remaining sectors feeling stressed by this change in support may have to turn to the JobMaker programs or hope for an extension of the JobKeeper program.
