Australian Businesses Optimistic About Employment Prospects And Profit In 2014

07 Jan 2014

2014 is seen by Australian businesses as a good year for improvement, with expectations for profits, sales, employment and investment growing to their biggest level in 12 months.

The latest Business Expectations Survey from Dun and Bradstreet shows that the intentions of employment and capital investment have overcome the previous quarter’s negative territory to reach above their 10-year average levels.

Stephen Koukoulas, the economics adviser of Dun and Bradstreet says that employment expectations are especially promising and will ease the job security concerns of some people.

He said that while they are still not quite at the very energetic levels for hiring and employment intentions just yet, it has clearly picked up in the last 9-12 months or so.

Mr. Koukoulas added that it is also suggesting that anyway, the employment growth in Australia will see to a more tenable pace in the first half of 2014.

The survey also shows that during the first three months of 2014, one-fourth of the firms plan to raise the cost of their services and products. This move may spur the Reserve Bank to grow interest rates.

Businesses in Australia are also very optimistic with the positive feeling growing exponentially. The survey found that compared to last year, two-thirds of the firms in Australia are feeling more positive about this year’s growth prospects.

Employment intentions have recovered from last quarter’s reading of -1.1 to the current year’s 8.8, which is the highest level in three years. The capital spending outlook has bounced back to 7.2 from -0.4.