Survey shows most people believe recovery two years away

More than a quarter of New Zealanders expect the economy to be growing again within the next year and nearly two-thirds expect growth within two, a survey shows.

The weighted national online ShapeNZ poll of 2469 New Zealanders taken during the past four days was commissioned by the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Only 7 per cent of those questioned thought economic growth would start in the next six months, 21 per cent said in a year, 34 per cent said in two years, and 23 per cent said it would take three years or more.

Business people were more optimistic, with 78 per cent expecting the economy to be growing within two years.

While 62 per cent of people thought it would be three years or more before the unemployment rate started coming down, 55 per cent of business people expected a fall in unemployment to start in two years.

Among those in work, 79 per cent said they would keep their job, 3 per cent thought they might lose it and find another quickly, 11 per cent feared they would lose their job and would not find another quickly, and 2 per cent said they would probably lose their job and have difficulty finding another.

The 16 per cent in work who feared they might lose their jobs in the next year was down from 19 per cent in February. The 55 per cent who felt the country was generally heading in the right economic direction was up from 53 per cent in February.

But there was also a slight rise in those feeling the country was going in the wrong direction, up 1 percentage point to 24 per cent.

On the Government's economic performance, 44 per cent were neutral, giving it a score of 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 - where 1 means very poor and 5 means excellent - while 29 per cent gave it a 4+ rating and 18 per cent rated it as poor with 2-.

The council said the public were more optimistic about economic and employment recovery times than some economists.

- NZPA