Covid 2022: Ten industries to thrive in NSW as we live with virus
Covid has killed off many businesses both big and small. But as we transition to living with the virus, some companies are now thriving. These are the 10 industries set to boom in 2022.
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Sydney has changed, the world has changed.
We’ve been told lockdowns are a thing of the past as we move on to learning to live with Covid.
Many industries have been hit hard but others are set for a bright and promising 2022 as we get used to the new normal.
Paul Nicolaou, executive director at Business Sydney, said businesses that marry innovation with the “bricks and mortar” approach to business are well placed to push on in 2022.
“There’s a place for businesses that are using both online and bricks and mortar techniques,” he said.
“People still want that face-to-face interaction, but I believe a lot of people will continue to use online as a means of doing business.”
Navigating the Omicron wave will be the first challenge for businesses in 2022, but if they mange this there are bright skies ahead.
“If we don‘t control Omicron and it continues to be a problem, businesses will struggle going forward in the next six months,” Mr Nicolaou said.
“However, if governments are able to manage Omicron and the rates start dropping, I think you’ll find that businesses and the economy start to pick up positively over the year.”
Jess Wilson, executive director at the Business Council of Australia, agreed, but said there was a lot of hard work ahead.
“Australians should be optimistic about 2022, we have big opportunities to deliver a stronger economy with more jobs and better living standards,” she said.
“To deliver this, we’ll have to keep our foot on the accelerator when it comes to reopening the economy and pull every lever we can to drive new investment in job-creating projects and productivity boosting reform.”
As living with Covid and Omicron because the norm, these are the industries set to benefit.
The 10 industries set to thrive in 2022
1/ Weddings
Social-distancing requirements, caps on numbers and closed borders disrupted wedding planning throughout the last 18 months, with many couples deciding to postpone their big day. With restrictions eased, and an exemption to allow signing and dancing, 2022 appears to be a bumper year for weddings.
Ashdown + Bee, a boutique weddings company based in Sydney, is gearing up for a stacked calendar, with couples eager to make the most of the relaxation of restrictions.
“With all the wedding postponements caused by the lockdowns and restrictions last year, 2022 is set to be a huge year for weddings,” Melissa Murray, creative director at the company, said. “There are always new engagements happening, so this combined with the postponed weddings means dates for vendors are filling fast.”
Due to venue and vendor availability, Ms Murray also said there’s been a significant increase in weekday and smaller weddings, as customers try to navigate the busy calendar.
“There is now a trend for a super stylish wedding with all the decor and inclusions of a large lavish wedding, but on a smaller, more intimate level,” she said.
2/ Professional cleaning services
Covid has shone a spotlight on hygiene and cleanliness, placing more of an emphasis on good practice, a trend that looks set to continue.
“Customer demand for domestic house cleaning has gone through the roof,” said Toby Schulz, co-founder and co-CEO of Maid2Match.
The cleaning service operates across Sydney and has seen demand spike as a result of the pandemic.
Pre-pandemic, Maid2Match would receive around 50 applicants for a cleaner advert, but thanks to the demand in cleaners since the onset of Covid they now only get applicants in the single digits.
“The biggest challenge has been getting cleaners on our team, we’re turning away hundreds of jobs every week as we just can’t service all the work,” Mr Schulz said.
Mr Schulz has also noticed a change in the attitudes of customers who are more aware of the ‘hygiene lingo’ since Covid began.
“For example, ‘high-touch points’, customers would never use that phrase with us in the past, it was something that only our cleaners would say,” he said. “Customers are asking us about those areas now and are certainly more educated than what they were pre-pandemic, that's for sure.”
Maid2Match registered its busiest Christmas season on record and is anticipating demand to remain as hygiene awareness increases and the five-day office work week becomes a thing of the past.
“Every week we're breaking our own records, so we’re feeling like it’s a really strong year for us,” he said.
3/ Recruitment
In what is being dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’, according to research by Microsoft, more than 40 per cent of the global workforce were considering leaving their employers at the end of last year as workers try to strike a new work-life balance and yearn for something new.
“Recruitment companies, they're going to do very well this year,” Paul Nicolaou, executive director at Business Sydney, said.
“People are desperate to find staff and I’ve spoken to a number of recruitment companies and they’re doing very well at the moment.”
Callam Pickering, APAC economist for recruitment agency Indeed, said the most recent lockdowns in NSW and Victoria were not the break on recruitment that was anticipated.
“Demand for talent was strong throughout 2021 – with job postings well above pre-pandemic levels – which saw nationwide employment reach a new record high,” Mr Pickering said.
That demand has not abated in 2022, with the number of job vacancies soaring.
“While January is normally a quiet period for recruitment due to the summer holidays, we expect the demand for talent to remain strong in 2022,” he said.
“Omicron creates considerable uncertainty for Australian businesses and that could potentially weigh on hiring, but if the Australian economy proves resilient we can be confident that 2022 will be a bumper year for recruitment.”
4/ Training and upskilling
With record numbers of vacancies and workers keen to change industries, businesses in training and upskilling are set to thrive.
“The government – both the federal and state – are spending a lot on retraining and training people to help manage a shortfall of staff in certain sectors,” Mr Nicolaou said.
Training provider TAFE NSW is subsidising and making free certain courses where shortfalls exist in industry staffing and welcoming students keen to broaden their skills.
“There’s never been a better time to study at TAFE, with the NSW Government providing 100,000 fee-free apprentice places to meet the demand for tradies,” Alister Henskens MP, NSW Minister for Skills and Training, said.
“There is also strong demand for hospitality workers and TAFE is running a range of programs, including fee-free short courses, to quickly address industry demand and provide a direct pathway to jobs.”
In partnership with global drinks giant Diageo, TAFE NSW is offering three free online hospitality licensing courses, including the Responsible Service for of Alcohol (RSA). As part of Diageo’s ‘Raising the Bar’ initiative, the courses are designed to encourage people to improve their skills and gain the licence needed to help plug the shortfall in hospitality staff.
5/ Grocery delivery
“The service is so different from what you get from the traditional grocery store, and that really resonated,” Mark Heath, co-founder and co-CEO of grocery delivery company VOLY, said.
“Then lockdowns came in and suddenly people didn't want to go to the grocery store, and they liked our service and what we were offering – the volume of demand went crazy.”
VOLY has set about trying to revolutionise the grocery industry, promising customers groceries in 15 minutes or under from the moment they ordered on the company’s app, which focuses on market-sourced fresh food.
The company went live only five months ago and has expanded rapidly across Sydney.
“It's about sourcing the freshest stuff and making sure we get it out within 15 minutes,” said Mr Heath. “We’re now across a lot of Sydney, in five months of operation, it hasn’t gone too bad!”
VOLY has ‘stores’ across the city – “7-Eleven’s without the customers and fresh food”, described Heath – and stocks them with food sourced daily from markets and suppliers.
“Once you take out the customers you can start getting really efficient with the way you stack products,” he said.
Consumer habits are changing and Mr Heath said VOLY wants to be the grocery service that lets people “reclaim their time”, having lost it during lockdowns.
“People now don’t want to go to the shops, because they suddenly have way better things to do,” he said. “If I can choose between going to Woolies or somewhere else, I know where I'm going – so I think there’s been an element of reclaiming your time as well.”
6/ Domestic tourism
With international travel still disrupted, costly and complicated, domestic tourism looks set to benefit.
Coupled with open borders between states, tourism in regional NSW could expect a busy year.
In Byron Bay, the ending of all domestic border restrictions in Queensland on Saturday is expected to see an influx of Queenslanders and more arrivals from the nearby Gold Coast Airport.
“The Queensland border opening up on Saturday is absolutely crucial for the recovery in Byron, because the closure cut off a lifeblood of visitors,” said Peter Wotton, managing editor of Byron and Beyond. “It’s early days but we saw a lot of day trippers down from Queensland.”
More tourists will now be able to stay in Byron from across the country, once again able to fly into Gold Coast – where flights are frequent and cheap – and travel down to the area.
“We feel that the border being open will mean that tourism is back on track,” he said.
Kate Wilson, owner of Cape Beach House, a boutique guesthouse in Byron, said she had increased demand from Sydneysiders after the first lockdown in 2020 and although the Omicron wave is muddying the waters in the near future she expects that holiday-makers will return as clearer governmental guidelines are set out.
“We hope that we‘re going to have a sweet spot between March and June,” she said. “We’re hoping that Omicron will have peaked, people will have been boosted and guests will come up here and have a great time once again.”
Queensland’s border opening without restrictions on January 15 will not only result in visitors from the north, but also ease people’s trepidations about interstate travel, she said.
“I think it’s going to make it easier, people will feel a bit more confident to travel interstate – so we’re optimistic for a very good 2022, but of course cautious at the same time.”
7/ Online shopping logistics and delivery
With being unable to head to the local shopping centre during lockdown, online retail went into overdrive.
So did the logistics and delivery services involved.
“We’ve got a number of members saying that they recorded their best years ever, because people were going online to order,” Mr Nicolaou said. “And they believe that demand will stay strong because people find it easy and convenient.”
Australia Post has seen online shopping increase by as much as 32 per cent during the pandemic, with the organisation consistently delivering more than 10 million parcels a week across the country.
Over 5.7 million Australian households are now consistently shopping online and it is expected online shopping will continue to grow over the coming years by about 9 per cent per annum on average over the next decade.
Michelle McDowell, managing editor of Allied Express – the largest, independently owned courier and express freight company in Australia – has seen first hand how demand has upticked.
“We were really mindful that this would be a period of time that those services would be things that would be greatly relied on, because people couldn’t get to retail stores or out shopping,” she said. “People have had a great experience with online trading and we think that they will stay there.”
8/ Construction
Construction – an industry affected less than most during the pandemic – will have a strong year, as the government focuses spending on infrastructure.
“Construction is going to be in demand, because of what the governments are doing both at a federal and state level in relation to building schools, roads, hospitals,” Mr Nicolaou said.
The continued work on the Sydney Metro will open up opportunities for construction – both residential and commercial – as buildings and infrastructure are planned across the network‘s reach, as well as near stations and hubs.
“The demand is huge and anyone in the construction or infrastructure space will do very well over the next 12 to 24 months,” Mr Nicolaou said.
9/ Live-streaming funerals
Despite the easing of restrictions on funerals in NSW, demand for virtual coverage of proceedings continues to remain high in NSW central west and beyond, as people use the ability of live streaming and technology to reduce lengthy travel times, while still being part of the ceremony.
Parkes-based Chris Williams said his Regional Streaming Network business had to hire extra staff to film about 100 funerals a week at the height of the NSW Covid lockdown in mid-2021.
With state restrictions on funeral attendance now eased, Williams said his business has still been receiving a large number of requests for live streaming and video recording of proceedings.
“We’re still finding people are time sensitive or their jobs are so demanding that they don’t have that one or two days to travel interstate or from overseas to go to a service of a loved one,” he said.
10/ RAT manufacturers and pathology labs
The hottest property in all of NSW – a rapid antigen test (RAT) – will benefit the businesses in this sphere in 2022 as testing shifts from PCR to RAT (assuming the government can assure enough of a supply).
With NSW making it mandatory to register a positive RAT test on the Service NSW app and resolutions by the federal government to ensure the supply of RATs, manufacturers of the small plastic testing kits can expect another bumper year in 2022.
Currently, NSW-based Innovation Scientific is the only Australian RAT manufacturer whose kits are approved for domestic use, with the remaining 21 being made overseas. Two Brisbane-based companies, AnteoTech and Ellume, are seeking regulatory approval to use their RATs within the country.
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