Turning the lights back on

For those of you who think we just need to re-open businesses and everything will be fine, you are in for a shock. There have been fundamental changes brought about by COVID-19 that will severely impact our economy for years to come.

Office space will become more freely available as many more people work from home causing losses for commercial landlords. This will also mean less business for services that support office workers such as retail, private transport, and food outlets.

Inbound migration will be less than half for the next two years thereby reducing demand for housing, transport, and a wide range of ancillary products and services.

Inbound international tourism will be non-existent for this year and will be radically curtailed for up to 3 years, hitting Australia’s export earnings hard.

Unemployment will remain high in many sectors as they struggle to adjust to the “new normal”. This is especially true for hospitality, travel, retail, and out-of-home recreation.

And finally, COVID-19 is highly unlikely to simply disappear, and therefore will require appropriate measures of varying degrees into the future. Vaccination will obviously assist when available but there are people who either won’t vaccinate, or can’t due to their dire socio-economic circumstances.

This is not a simple “flick the lights back on and its all good” situation and will require much thought along with the pain.