In June 2020 Roy Morgan Business Confidence was up 5.1pts (+5.7%) to 95.0 led by increases in WA, NSW and Queensland. Business Confidence in June is now virtually level with its March result of 95.1 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and shut-downs.

In June 14.5% of the workforce (2.05 million Australians) were unemployed, down 42,000 on May. However, this slight improvement was largely cancelled out by the rise in under-employment, now at 10% of the workforce (1.41 million), and up 37,000 on a month ago.

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence dropped 4.5pts to 93.0 this week – and is now at its lowest for over a month since May 23/24, 2020 (92.7). Consumer Confidence is now 25.9pts lower than a year ago on the comparable weekend of June 29/30, 2019 (118.9) and 2.1pts below the 2020 weekly average of 95.1.

New research from Roy Morgan shows over 4.3 million people (32% of working Australians) have been ‘working from home’ (WFH) during the last few months since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down large parts of the Australian economy. These findings are based on interviews with 9,905 Australians aged 14+ conducted in April-May 2020 – of whom 6,637 are working Australians.

Consumer confidence bounced nearly 8 points in June to 104.5, but is still well under its historical average.

Support for the L-NP has dropped to 50.5% cf. ALP 49.5% on a two-party preferred basis in mid-June according to telephone and online interviewing conducted over the weekends of June 13/14 & 20/21, 2020 with a representative cross-section of 2,593 Australian electors.

A special analysis of movement data at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo shows visitation picking up since the re-opening of the Sydney landmark on the first of June, but still well below the levels seen during the early part of the year, particularly in February and early March.