Survey covers wide business range

The New Zealand Herald CEO Survey, in association with Business New Zealand, was emailed to about 500 SMEs (small to medium enterprises) on February 19 and completed on February 27.

It received 183 valid responses. Nearly one in three (29.5 per cent) were from manufacturers, followed by health and community services (12 per cent), wholesalers (11.5 per cent), finance, insurance, property and business services (9.8 per cent), education (7.1 per cent), construction (6.6 per cent), transport and storage (5.5 per cent), agriculture, forestry and fishing (4.9 per cent), retailers (3.8 per cent), accommodation, hospitality and restaurants (2.7 per cent), communications services (2.2 per cent), electricity, gas and water supply (2.2 per cent), government administration, including local government (1.6 per cent) and mining (0.5 per cent). There was no response from businesses offering culture and recreation services or personal and other services.

The average size of respondent companies was 39 full-time-equivalent (FTE) employees and the total number of FTE employees covered in responses was 7139.