Business Confidence Rising For Start Of 2022

Business confidence across Townsville remains at sustained high levels into 2022 with the release of the PVW Partners quarterly Business Confidence Survey showing an increase from the December 2021 quarter index of 7 to a March 2022 quarter index just under 10.

Carl Valentine, PVW Partners Managing Partner said, “business confidence often wanes from December to March due to seasonal factors, however it was pleasing to see that like this time last year business confidence has increased. With the index rising by nearly 3 points this reflects a continuation of the sustained higher levels of business confidence seen over the past 4 years.”

Commencing in September 1991, PVW Partners Townsville Business Confidence Survey has now been running for over 30 years and is a unique measure of the levels of confidence of Townsville’s business community.

The results for the first quarter of 2022 provide a positive insight into the expectations of our business community for the remainder of the year.

“We are expecting resource constraints to continue to be a major challenge for the businesses in our region throughout 2022 as our economy shows sustained improvement. The survey results reflect this with both larger businesses and those relying on the mining sector expecting to only increase or maintain their current workforces. There is no apparent expectation of employment opportunities reducing in the coming quarter”.

“Reflective of the continuing challenges in finding appropriately skilled and experienced workers in many sectors, 96% of respondents are expecting to maintain or increase their investment in staff training, with investment in staff training being one of the consistently strongest components of the business confidence index over the past 18 months”.

“With most state and territory borders re-opening air travel might again be a feature of conducting business in regional Queensland. 44% of businesses expected their expenditure on air travel to increase this quarter, with only 4% expected to reduce air travel costs. This will be welcome news for the airlines that service our region and the businesses that work in the air travel and tourism sector”.

This survey also asked Townsville’s business owners and managers to share their views on the business-related considerations as we begin ‘living with COVID-19 in the community’ (the survey being completed in mid-December 2021 around the time Queensland’s borders were reopening and business restrictions were being reduced).

“In further good news for future business confidence, 50% of respondents expected the transition to living with COVID-19 to have a positive (24%) or no impact (26%) on their business in 2022. However, 44% of respondents did expect the transition to have limited negative impacts on their business”.

“The transition to living with COVID does cause uncertainty for our communities and our businesses are not immune to that uncertainty. Strong leadership, stability, and reliability from all levels of government, and within the business community itself, is critical in helping maintain business confidence through periods of uncertainty”.

“With that in mind, it is of concern that 56% of our respondents are lacking confidence in the Queensland Government to keep Queensland “open for business” in terms of open borders and fewer COVID-19 related business restrictions as the number of COVID-19 cases likely increases in Queensland in the coming months. Only 30% of the respondents were confident that Queensland would remain open for business as the case numbers increase. Business confidence would be better supported by clearly articulated future planning from all government and public sector bodies that business can rely on”.