After falling from 17 to an all-time low of 7 in the second quarter, confidence in the other services sector bounced back to 17 in the third quarter. Although the rebound is promising, at 17, confidence remained dismally low in the other services sector. read more

After falling from 17 to an all-time low of 7 in the second quarter, confidence in the other services sector bounced back to 17 in the third quarter. Although the rebound is promising, at 17, confidence remained dismally low in the other services sector.

Other services bounced back on the lifting of lockdown restrictions. Confidence in the other services sector bounced back from 7 to 17 in the third quarter. While the Q2 survey took place during alert level 4, level 2 applied at the time of the Q3 survey. The read more

Other services bounced back on the lifting of lockdown restrictions. Confidence in the other services sector bounced back from 7 to 17 in the third quarter. While the Q2 survey took place during alert level 4, level 2 applied at the time of the Q3 survey. The performance of the respective sub-sectors related closely to the lifting of the lockdown restrictions. It was too early to estimate the impact of the lifting of the inter-provincial leisure travel ban on hotels. Activity in restaurants remained weak. Property sales bounced back, but property management struggled. Business services contracted at the same rate than previously. Since the completion of the survey, South Africa moved to alert level 1. The other services sector will benefit from the lifting of these restrictions, but the road to full recovery and the return to pre-lockdown levels is likely to be slow and bumpy.

The second-quarter results of a long-running internal BER survey (made public for the first time), once again confirmed the devastating economic fallout of the phased lockdown restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The latest results of read more

The second-quarter results of a long-running internal BER survey (made public for the first time), once again confirmed the devastating economic fallout of the phased lockdown restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The latest results of the BER’s other services survey showed that business confidence in the sector plummeted from an already-low level of 17 in the first quarter to a meagre 7 in the second quarter. This is a record low in the 15-year history of the survey.