Auckland's small and medium-sized enterprises are largely riding out the recession and the impact of swine flu, a survey has found.
Madison Recruitment's inaugural Auckland Business Survey found the biggest challenges faced by its 130 respondents were the "standard issues of cash flow, funding, bad debt and local competition".
The
most pressing issue, one described as a challenge by 57 per cent of respondents, was local competition. Behind that was increased costs (44 per cent), administration/compliance time and costs (31 per cent) and financial challenges including cash flow, funding and bad debts (25 per cent).
A relatively small number reported a lack of skilled staff (21 per cent), staff retention (4 per cent) and staffing level flexibility (18 per cent) as challenging.
"[That was] a predictable turnaround from last year's tight labour market," Madison said.
The survey found 51 per cent had cut staff levels over the past 12 months.
When asked whether swine flu had affected their business outlook beyond the global downturn, just 2 per cent were "less positive".
However Madison general manager of sales Justin Pipe expected that resilience would be tested.
"We believe over the next six to 12 months it's going to be more and more on people's radar screens as an important issue."
