NAB Business Survey November 2025 – Confidence and conditions fall

17 December 2025
Economy and Markets

• Business confidence dropped 5pts in November, reversing some recent gains.
• Conditions eased as profitability and trading weakened despite a small lift in employment.
• Capacity utilisation hit an 18-month high, raising concerns about looming constraints.

Summary

Business confidence fell 5pts (unrounded) in November, retracing some of the gains made over the past 6-months. Business conditions fell 3pts (unrounded) in the month, as falls in profitability and trading more than offset the minor gain in employment. Weakness was broad based across industries and geographies. Other indicators of activity in the survey also weakened as both forward orders and exports fell in the month (falling 2pts and 1pt respectively). Despite a weaker tone to the November survey, the rise in the trend measures of business confidence and conditions series remains intact. Further, capacity utilisation rose for the fourth consecutive month and is now above the long-run average in 6 of 8 industries in trend terms (up from 5 industries last month). Capacity utilisation is now at an 18-month high and is running over 2ppts above its long-term average. This will add to concerns that the domestic economy is close to pushing up against capacity constraints.

Survey Details

• Business confidence fell 5pts (unrounded) to +1 index point, having declined 7pts in the past two months. By industry, trend confidence was strongest in manufacturing, while wholesale and mining were in negative territory.
• Business conditions fell 3pts (unrounded) to +7 index points with gains in employment more than offset by 6pt falls in both profitability and trading conditions. While trading and profitability declined in the month, they remain above their respective long-run averages). The employment index continues to track broadly sideways, consistent with stability in labour market conditions into year-end.
• By industry, both business conditions and confidence were flat or fell across all industries. Trend conditions remained strongest in the mining and services sectors. Trend confidence remains solid in the cyclically sensitive industries such as retail and manufacturing.
• By State, conditions in WA retraced strong gains from October and rose sharply in Tas. In trend terms, Qld remained the strongest state and Tas rose to be the second strongest, while Vic and SA were the weakest.
• Capacity utilisation edged up further to 83.6% to its highest level in 18-months. Forward orders fell 2pts to be back around their long-run average, but still sustain the upward trend in place since May 2024.
• Purchase cost growth rose to 1.3% in quarterly equivalent terms. Labour cost growth edged down to 1.4% while product price growth remained steady and retail prices edged up to 0.8%. 

Read the full report (PDF, 774KB) for more detail.