While over half of Australia’s small to medium sized business owners expect to see economic recovery in the next twelve months, the level of confidence in the recovery has fallen since November, according to the April 2010 MYOB Business Monitor.
In the April MYOB Business Monitor, other significant findings include reports that revenue decreases for business owners are higher than reports of revenue increases. And in a Federal election year, the signs are ominous for the Federal Government, with business owners’ dissatisfaction with Federal Government support and contribution to business growing 7 percent since November 2009.
Tim Reed, MYOB CEO, says, “These results are telling us that while a small majority of small to medium sized business owners believe the economy will improve this year, a significant proportion still do not expect a recovery. We are definitely not out of the woods yet.”
Business owners in the Agriculture, Manufacturing and Wholesale industries were the least optimistic, with 50% expecting the economy to improve within 12 months time. This is not surprising given that 49% of business owners in these industries report a decrease in business revenue over the past 12 months, compared to 36 percent of business owners overall.
“Business owners are the true indicators of the Australian economy and the reports of revenue decreases in the past 12 months should be closely listened to by economic planners. As more than a third of business owners report sustained levels of revenue loss with no changes in their sales pipeline projections for the 2009/10 financial year, they are taking a far more conservative view of the economic recovery than some of the leading industry commentators,” says Mr Reed.
