Australia Business Confidence

Last Release

Aug 31, 2024

Actual

-4

Units In

Points

Frequency

Monthly

Next Release

Oct 10, 2024

Time to Release

27 Days 17 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
23 Apr 2021	-66 Mar 2020	4.93 Points	1997-2024	National Australia Bank

The NAB monthly survey of business confidence is based on a telephone survey of around 600 small, medium and large size non-agricultural companies. The Survey measures the expectations of business conditions for the upcoming month and is a simple average of trading, profitability and employment indices, reported by respondents for their company. The indices are calculated by taking the difference between the percentage of respondents nominating good or very good, or a rise and those nominating poor or very poor, or a fall.

Latest Updates

Australia's NAB business confidence index plunged to -4 in August of 2024 from July's figure of 1. It was the first negative reading in three months, pointing to the lowest reading year to date amid steep falls in recreation & personal services, transport & utilities, construction, and manufacturing. Meanwhile, business conditions eased sharply (3 vs 6 in July), falling below average, due to a sharp drop in employment (1 vs 7), and small declines in sales (8 vs 10) and profitability (1 vs 2). By industry, conditions fell in wholesale, manufacturing, retail, and business & property. Labor cost growth eased to 1.7% in quarterly equivalent terms from the prior 2.4% while purchase cost growth rose to 1.6%. Simultaneously, product price growth was slightly lower (0.6% vs 0.7%) while retail price growth rose to 1.2% from 1.0%. Meantime, forward orders were unchanged (at -4). Capacity utilization remains elevated (82.9% vs 82.7%) and capex jumped (11 vs 6).