Highlights
 Private businesses have weathered the storm While growth has slowed, private businesses still outstripped the performance of the general economy by increasing sales by an average of 6.8 per cent and profits by an average of 5.8 per cent. Funding remains the top challenge Private businesses’ ambitions are constrained by the difficulty of accessing funding. Wage costs constraining hiring With softening demand reducing the competition for talent, businesses are seeing higher wage costs as their major hiring constraint. Only one in five businesses are preparing for the upturn Businesses seem more focused on short-term performance rather than positioning themselves to exploit a return to economic growth. Pricing driving competition Nearly one-third (30.4 per cent) of businesses now rank price as a key driver of competition, up from 11.7 per cent in February 2007. Manufacturing, retail and property are most affected by the pressure on margins resulting from the downturn. | | |