Business confidence at 52 year low

Stuff reports:

Business confidence has sunk to its lowest level since the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research began surveying sentiment in 1970, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the research firm says.

NZIER said its latest quarterly survey of business opinion made for grim reading, with a net 73% of businesses expecting conditions to worsen over the coming months.

This means business confidence is lower today than it was during the oil crisis of the 1970s, the sharemarket crash of the 1980s, the Asian Financial Crisis of the 1990s, the GFC of the 2000s and the Covid pandemic.

It might even be lower than during the Suez crisis of the 1950s or the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the data series only goes back to 1970!