The Covid-19 recovery has begun and for many businesses in the Australian SME market, this is welcomed news.
Confidence levels have jumped significantly despite the uncertainty with individual state lockdowns and restrictions, and SMB's are adapting and repositioning to their new normal, with some (12%) even exceeding their activity levels pre-pandemic. However, during this phase of repositioning, wage and salary bills are expected to increase, putting pressure on businesses to maintain adequate staffing levels in order to retain their key employees.
Unemployment levels as expected are on the increase, notably linked to the reconfiguration of JobKeeper and the completion of the Cashflow Boost for employers. In view of this however, the data still shows a significant improvement on the modelling provided in April and May 2020.
In relation to business efficiency and profitability, those SMB's that were able to take the time at the height of the pandemic to improve business efficiencies are now able to ride the wave of recovery, improving their profitability along the way.
The good news is the road to recovery, for most is not expected to take more than 6 months with the current business climate, which in turn continues to grow business confidence!
To find out more around the data for the HR Quarterly Index for Quarter 1 2021, and see how Australian businesses are faring during the Covid-19 recovery phase - download our latest Quarterly Index below.
In building this report, we review data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Sensis Business Index, the National Australia Bank Small Business Report, as well as our own data.
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