High unemployment, rental stress, changes to lending criteria, drought, bushfires. Five factors that hit Taree businesses hard in 2019 and Taree Business Chamber is calling on people to buy local in 2020.
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The appeal comes from president John Stevens as he reflects on the local economy and reveals the general sentiment of the Taree business community.
"It's not particularly optimistic."
To inject revenue and boost business confidence he is urging people impacted by the bushfires to support local businesses during the recovery process.
The Rotary MidCoast Bushfire Appeal focused fundraising efforts and attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars to help people who lost homes and property to fire during November.
Money continues to be distributed from the fund, and as insurance assessors continue to visit properties and process claims, Mr Stevens says, "it would be great to see that donated money, wherever possible, be spent and go through local businesses to purchase whatever is required to help people to get back on their feet."
"It's just economics in action in the most favourable way."
Numerous factors contribute to Mr Steven's assessment of business confidence in the region.
"At the moment we are dealing with unemployment figures locally that are somewhere around 11 per cent. Now the current national average is 5.2 per cent," Mr Stevens said.
"The percentage of people under rental stress is among the highest in the country for our area and that comes back to issues we have in our area of housing availability ... because there is no extra availability in the market it keeps the cost of rent high, which then means less disposable income for people to spend in our shops, retail, healthcare and in our local businesses."
Mr Stevens reveals changes to lending criteria in the wake of The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is impacting local businesses in Taree.
"Basic lending conditions are becoming an issue that compounds on people who are already having their revenues diminish.
"With tighter lending restrictions, people are making decisions like ... well, am I just going to pull out now and cut my losses and do something else, or am I going to spend to keep my business alive in this time hoping that it's going to pay off at some point in the future.
"We already have a shortage of jobs, and we've got industries that are already impacted by their clientele not having disposable income, from retail to healthcare.
"People are even making consumer choices in healthcare. I run a healthcare business where people say, 'look, I'm not going to deal with my back pain or my shoulder injury for the time being because I just don't think I can afford to seek treatment for that at this time'."
Mr Stevens also points to government as a contributing factor to declining business confidence.
"It's not particularly optimistic and part of that is based on some continual disappointment," Mr Stevens said.
"In every election cycle it seems that we ramp up towards a whole bunch of promises only to then see that struggle to eventuate until the next election cycle, where things move along rapidly but it takes a whole lot to actually see things come to fruition.
At the moment we are dealing with unemployment figures locally that are somewhere around 11 per cent. Now the current national average is 5.2 per cent.
- John Stevens, Taree Business Chamber
"You can look at something small, but a meaningful development for our CBD, like Livvi's Place in Fotheringham Park. It took something like four years to actually turn a sod and get it going.
"So people in Taree are a little sceptical to hear what's going to happen in the future - they'll believe it when they see it, like the Northern Gateway and the Figtrees on the Manning development. All of these things will be great developments when one of them actually turns a sod, and it will take one to unlock the confidence, but otherwise it's speculative and that really only goes so far."
Mr Stevens says the community has a role to play in businesses choosing to keep their doors open.
"It just takes a few weeks of extra cash coming through the till in a cafe or a shop for you to start to feel a little bit more positive, so I don't that it will necessarily will take a big thing to boost confidence.
"But every time a business shuts down, it just confirms our scepticism and we've had a few of those in recent months."