Brisbane succeeding in business confidence

Published Tuesday, 17 April, 2018 at 10:26 AM

Minister for Employment and Small Business and Minister for Training and Skills Development
The Honourable Shannon Fentiman

Strong jobs growth is driving up business confidence in Brisbane, as the capital city has seen confidence from small and medium sized businesses rate second only to Hobart.

Minister for Employment and Small Business Shannon Fentiman said the most recent Sensis Business Index was a clear indicator that the Palaszczuk Government’s initiatives were working.

“As a state, we are cementing our position as a major driver in Australia’s economy, with more than 160,000 new jobs created since January 2015,” Ms Fentiman said.

“Confidence in Brisbane was up nine points in the latest Sensis survey to +61, the second most confident capital city in Australia and significantly above the national average for capital cities which was +47.”

“We recognise that there is more to do and that’s why we are working in partnership with our Better Regulation Taskforce to make things easier for small and medium sized businesses.”

“Our key priority is reducing the regulatory burden on small businesses and that’s the number one priority of the Taskforce.”

“We want to make it easier for SMEs to do business in Queensland.”

“The Palaszczuk Government will continue to work in partnership with Chamber of Commerce and Industry to further improve confidence with our growing number of small businesses.”

“It’s positive news released today that shows expectations are positive across all five key indicators for Queensland Small Businesses.”

“Expectations are higher for sales, prices and profitability over the last quarter and over the past 12 months we have seen sales expectations double, while employment and wages have stayed steady.”

“Businesses with a positive outlook are attributing this to our grants and training schemes like Back to Work and Skilling Queenslanders for Work.”

“More than 70% of the over 6,000 employers under our Back to Work program are small businesses and it’s wonderful that we have been able to support them to employ over 9,000 Queenslanders.”

“These are buoyant results for Queensland, especially for Brisbane, but they also reflect that the state is continuing to recover from heavy rains and floods that hit our regional areas in the wake of cyclones Debbie and Iris.”

 

ENDS

 

MEDIA CONTACT:            Inga Williams      0410 769 711