Business expects worse conditions, Chamber of Commerce survey shows

Michael Bailey, chief executive officer of the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the survey of business confidence in the March quarter showed that nearly 60 per cent of companies planned to grow, despite forecast economic headwinds.

"This shows that Tasmanian businesses are resilient at the moment and they are up to the challenges that may come their way over the next 12 months," he said.

"The biggest challenge for many businesses at the moment is finding enough skilled labour, which shows there is huge potential upside if we can tackle the labour shortages and get our training systems right."

Among the chief concerns of businesses were burgeoning insurance premiums, surging power bills, and higher transport costs and taxes.

Michael Cooper, chief executive officer of Tassie agribusiness Pure Foods Tasmania, said he has noticed a squeeze on his margins as consumers shift to lower-priced brands.

He blamed the effect of interest rate increases and other cost of living rises for the shift.

"People are still eating, but they're buying cheaper products where they can," he said.

"People are shopping down in price, they're going for more of the white label products or house brand products.

"Supply chains seem to be getting a lot easier, which is a good thing, but obviously demand is dropping, so the supply chains are catching up," Mr Cooper said.

He said freight and fuel costs were lower compared to the heights of the pandemic.

As was reflected in the TCCI survey, he said his biggest concern at present was the labour shortage.

"People are the really hard thing right now, we are finding it hard to get people, that's definitely an issue, much more so than it was six months ago."

Mr Cooper also said costs like insurance and power were concerning.

"Insurance is up over 50 per cent, power is up by 10 per cent, or about 20 per cent over two years, so power is a real issue," he said.

"We shouldn't be paying that, we can make our own power, we have the cheapest power in Australia, the government has got it wrong, we just need them to admit that."

Mr Bailey said the Tasmanian and Australian governments should focus on reducing these costs before they started dragging down business confidence.

"We would like to see ... a focus on these issues over the next 12 months.

"In particular we would like to see a focus on lifting the Tasmanian [employment] participation rate and improving skills and training to plug the skills gap.

"We would [also] like to see genuine relief on gas prices and electricity prices, and we would like to see the government reduce the tax and regulatory burden on business, especially small business."

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