Business confidence has returned to the positive levels that it was at before COVID-19 struck, according to Roy Morgan.
The Roy Morgan business confidence index was 101.5 in January 2022 which compares to 101.6 in January 2020, just before the pandemic started.
The performance of the index charts the highs and lows of the pandemic, dropping to 76.9 in April 2020, at the height of COVID-19 and 129.3 in May 2021, as the recovery from the first wave began.
While business confidence across Australia as a whole is positive at above 100, the situation varies across the states. New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania have positive confidence scores, while Victoria, South Australia and Queensland have negative scores.
The index also reveals that more people believe better times are ahead with 44.5% of respondents expecting their business to be better off financially in 12 months, compared to 23.1% who expected it to be worse off.
But the vote is close when it comes to how the economy will perform with 49.8% expecting better times for the economy compared to 47% who felt the news was likely to be bad.