Tasmania could take advantage of a trend growing among small business owners who are packing up and moving to ‘lifestyle’ areas.
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A report conducted for the National Broadband Network revealed small business owners spent 50 per cent of their working time online and 76 per cent have adopted modern technologies such as email software.
The survey was conducted nationally with about 700 small business owners across different industries.
About 80 per cent of those surveyed said they believed work-life balance was the key motivation behind starting their business.
Report author Bernard Salt said small business was becoming the “engine room” of the national economy but more and more people were choosing to become more mobile and flexible with their businesses.
“People are downsizing and moving to lifestyle areas but still having some hold on the business online,” Mr Salt said.
It was also becoming more and more common that people would retire, downsize or move but still maintain a small part of the business by being able to access broadband NBN.
Mr Salt said he believed it was in this way Tasmania could benefit from the trend.
He said one of the main findings to come out of the research was that all respondents indicated more work-life balance was one of the main motivators for starting their business and all people responded they wanted more “me-time” in their lives.
Across generations, he said all respondents said they wanted more personal time but Mr Salt said the motivations were different.
“Baby Boomers were saying they wanted more time to spend with their families but if you look at Gen-Y they were saying they wanted more time to sleep and rest,” he said.
Mr Salt said he believed the trends indicated an imminent shift in employment conditions.
“Work will become far more fluid and flexible than it has been,” he said.
“People are increasingly wanting to work on their own terms, to organise their work around their lifestyle commitments.”