T\he business community in Southland is feeling much more confident about its future, a chamber of commerce survey shows.
However, Southland Business Chamber chief executive Sheree Carey said it was cautious optimism as companies were still worried about staffing and inflation issues.
The chamber this week released the findings of a confidence survey for the quarter ending May 2022.
In its survey of 590 members, 62.5% of the respondents considered the general business situation in New Zealand would improve in the next six months, up from 0% last quarter.
The survey also showed businesses were continuing to struggle to find staff, with 100% finding it harder to find skilled/specialist staff, and 57% finding it harder to find unskilled staff than three months ago.
"I would be cautiously optimistic because while Covid pressures have come off a little bit which caused the confidence to rise, staffing issues, the rising costs, inflation and supply issues haven’t gone away," she said.
Ms Carey believed a large part of the positive sentiment was due to the boom of developments in Southland with many international companies investing into the region.
"We have Calder Stewart investing in a development in Awarua, the CBD development tracking along, a hotel to be open and another hotel to come ... We have a lot to be optimistic and confident about."
But the concern was the next step, because staffing restrictions were stunting that growth.
