As small and medium businesses in tourism, hospitality and retail struggle with the impacts of Covid-19, it's believed some may shut down for good.
Newsroom Pro managing director Bernard Hickey told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning some industries are being "hammered", while others could grow from the unprecedented times.
"It's gonna be really tough, the Reserve Bank reckons that for every month that we were in lockdown - Level 4 lockdown - that reduced GDP by about 35 per cent for that month, and that's not unusual, every other country in the world is seeing that as well.
"So we will see the hit to GDP being not quite so severe in Level 3 and Level 2, but it is a massive hit, there's no getting away from that and it's really hurt those particularly small to medium businesses in tourism, hospitality, cafes, restaurants, retail - they are hammered and they weren't ready for it, they don't have reserves. Many will never open again."
Mr Hickey said there will be a shift in jobs for many people, who may go from tourism to operating a digger or working in a call centre.
He also said there was plenty of work in the construction sector especially with the economy having to learn to get by without the "cheap, easy" temporary workers from overseas.
But for some tourism industries, he predicted a "pivot back to domestic tourism".
"The tourism sector won't be completely wiped out. There's an awful lot of domestic tourism that's gonna happen," Mr Hickey said.
"A lot of New Zealanders go overseas for a holiday and a lot of international people come here for a holiday, and there'll be no travelling for New Zealanders going overseas for holidays so they're going to have to go for a holiday somewhere in New Zealand, and that for some tourism operators will mean a pivot back to domestic tourism."
Mr Hickey also said there was other opportunities for businesses to learn from this pandemic, especially in the digital sector.
"For a lot of businesses, they're actually going to come out of this a lot better, more productive, and that's the challenge - can people re-engineer their businesses, recreate what they were doing? Maybe with fewer people, maybe more productively, maybe more internationally connected because we've suddenly worked out we can connect with the rest of the world relatively easily."
At 4pm today, the Government will announce whether New Zealand will stay in Alert Level 4, or whether it will drop into a lower alert level. The Government announcement today will air live on TVNZ1 and on 1 NEWS online.
SHARE ME