03 Apr Australian Business Economic Impact Survey (ABEIS): Week 1 – Early Insights

This week, REMPLAN released the Australian Business Economic Impact Survey (ABEIS). The survey seeks to gain an understanding of the changes that all types of businesses are experiencing in terms of employment, revenue, as well as sentiment on a range of other operational issues. With the assistance of our government clients and partners across the Nation, we have already received hundreds of responses.

Responses to the survey have been received from a wide range of businesses across every industry sector, with food and beverage services topping the list (Figure 1).

Other respondents providing valuable insights into the changes they are experiencing within their businesses include festival organisers, hairdressers, investment firms, supermarkets, taxi drivers, psychologists, pet hotels, and concreters.

New South Wales businesses have provided the most responses, with over half of all survey participants.  Except for the ACT, businesses from every state and territory across the country have participated in the survey to date.

Early results indicate that on average, businesses have experienced a 34 percent drop in revenue since the start of the crisis. However, negative impacts are not universal with several respondents reporting up to 50 percent increases in revenue.

Employment has also been negatively impacted. Across all industries respondents’ businesses have shed jobs by an average of 22 percent.  Many businesses however have reported no change in employment suggesting that to date, many businesses are maintaining employment at pre-crisis levels.

Despite the broad and largely negative changes impacting businesses and employees, some businesses are seeing positive outcomes resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. For example, over 43 percent of respondents have cited the wider acceptance of digital delivery of products and services.

As the number of responses to the survey grows over the coming weeks and months, REMPLAN will provide more detailed reporting for respective industries and states.  Where responses are adequate, we will also release findings to councils for their local government areas.

The survey will be open for at least the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. Businesses will be encouraged to respond several times throughout the crisis as policy and circumstances change.

REMPLAN will take snapshots of the survey results on a weekly and monthly basis, which will enable time series analysis and monitoring of the changing impacts and sentiments from businesses over time.

Monthly reporting with unidentified results at an industry level (i.e. reporting for retail trade, manufacturing, etc), will be made publicly available on our website.

All councils and Australian government agencies will be able to receive an excel file with unidentified survey response data. This will include a summary of all results for the Nation, your State or Territory, and depending on the number of responses, for your region. The survey data will also be formatted to allow the findings to be applied to REMPLAN software for economic impact modelling.

We welcome your support in disseminating this survey within your own network of local businesses.

Survey link:  remplan.co/C-19

Kind regards,
The REMPLAN team

www.remplan.com.au