Many small business owners are nursing a painful new year hangover, with the resetting of JobKeeper set to trigger a wave of job losses as banks keep a tight rein on credit amid a flare-up of coronavirus cases.

As Sydney and Melbourne suffer from renewed virus outbreaks, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Kate Carnell said: "We are seeing in January the start of a range of real problems for small business that are still pretty sluggish, and haven't recovered at this point."