General
659 responses to the survey were recorded. 406, or just under two-thirds, of these were from SMEs (businesses with fewer than 20 employees). This is an under-representation of businesses of this size. They account for 97.1% of all New Zealand businesses. Thus, whilst these figures were the most timely ones available, they represent a snapshot of businesses, rather than the whole economy. In what follows it should be borne in mind that the figures for the total sample contain a greater proportion of larger businesses than would be the case of a nationally representative survey of the whole economy.
From the responses, the most commonly represented industries were construction (13.7%), business services (13.5%), other (13.4%) and manufacturing (13.1%). 86% of the respondent businesses had been in operation for five or more years. Half of the businesses are regionally-based, just under a third describe their business as national and the remainder as international.
For the purposes of this report, the businesses have been analysed according to three employee size groups: small (0-5 employees), medium (6-19 employees) and large (20+ employees).
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