The latest MYOB Business Monitor report says that the New Zealand economy flat?lined in the last quarter, with business revenue falling, and most Kiwi business owners believing recovery is still over 12 months away.
38% of local businesses report revenue decreases compared to a year ago, with only 25% seeing increases.
The latest figures tell a different story from what was reported in the August report, when more businesses reported revenue increases (31%) than decreases (26%).
The majority of Kiwi business owners (58%) expect that recovery is still over a year away – a 12% fall in confidence since April.
MYOB General Manager Julian Smith said, “New Zealand businesses have lost ground ? there’s little doubt Kiwi businesses have been doing it hard over the last quarter. In the short term, businesses are not predicting any major improvements, with a pretty lean Christmas expected across the economy.”
Pipeline work is a metric of the MYOB Business Monitor, measuring expectations of sales or work in the next three months. This also fell.
Only 26% of businesses report more work than usual coming up (compared to 34% in August), and 32% are seeing a fall in their sales pipeline (compared to only 20% in August), said the report.
Wellington was the only centre to buck the trend, with slightly more businesses reporting an increase in pipeline work (28%) than a falling sales pipeline (23%).
“Ultimately, the recession has made Kiwis leaner and tougher in business – and much more determined and ambitious when facing the future,” continued Smith. “2010 has clearly handed New Zealand some challenges, with everything from an unsteady recovery to a slew of natural disasters. And the second half of this year is not one the majority of Kiwi business owners are going to remember for the right reasons. But as they are proving time and again, Kiwis are a tough breed, and the strategies many are setting in place now, should pay dividends in 2011.”
Results from the latest Australian MYOB Business Monitor showed that confidence in the Australian economy is down 7% with a marked reversal in revenue trends, with more than a third of Aussie businesses seeing revenue decline since November 2009.
Smith recently spoke to us regarding the GST changes and the affect it had on Kiwi businesses. Watch our video interview here.