Annual Enterprise Survey 2021

Impact of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic had significant impact on NZ business activity over 2020 and 2021 years, particularly when COVID-19 alert levels 3 and 4 were in place.

As the 2021 Annual Enterprise Survey results cover enterprises with balance dates between 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2021, the impact of COVID-19 was varied.

'Government funding, grants and subsidies' include government funded COVID-19 wage subsidies in the 2020 Annual Enterprise Survey. Wage subsidies passed on to employees are captured under salaries and wages paid. Significantly more COVID-19 wage subsidies are in the 2021 Annual Enterprise Survey results.

Statistical Unit

A statistical unit is the level at which a survey can be designed and forms the basis of sample selection. For the AES this is the kind-of-activity unit (KAU). (A 'KAU' is a subdivision of an enterprise consisting of a set of one or more activity units for which a single set of accounting records is available.)

Collection Unit

A collection unit is the level at which statistics are collected. For the AES, this is the same as the statistical unit and is the kind-of-activity unit. The selection unit (enterprise) may contain many KAUs, meaning that if an enterprise is selected then all of its KAUs will be included in the AES.

Selection Unit

A selection unit is the level at which a respondent to the survey is selected. For the AES this is the enterprise unit. (An 'enterprise' is generally described as a legal entity operating in New Zealand. For example it can be a company, partnership, trust, estate, incorporated society, voluntary organisation or self-employed individual.)

Under Coverage

Businesses that are not economically significant are not selected into the AES.

The working definition for 'economic significance' is that if an enterprise fulfils any one of the following conditions, then it is classified as economically significant:

• The Enterprise has greater than $30,000 Annual GST expenses or sales. (To avoid existing enterprises repeatedly changing their economic significance indicator, a buffer zone of $25,000 to $35,000 has been established),
• The Enterprise has more than 3 paid employees (This is the rolling mean employment which is measured as the twelve month moving average of the monthly employee-count figure),
• The Enterprise is in a GST exempt industry, other than residential property leasing and rental,
• The Enterprise is part of a Business Register (BR) group,
• The Enterprise is a new GST registration and has registered for Salaries and Wages PAYE,
• The Enterprise is a new GST registration and is part of a IRD GST group return,
• The Enterprise has a geographic unit classified to agriculture, it is alive on the BF, and it is classified as economically significant. (Typically these units will be registered for GST and/or have paid employees.)
• IR10 income is greater than $40,000 annually.

Some industries and activities are also excluded from AES including:

• Superannuation funds (K633000)
• Residential property operators (L671100)
• Foreign government representation (O755200)
• Religious services (S954000)
• Private households employing staff and undifferentiated goods and service-producing activities of households for own use (S96100-300)
• Non-market local and central government

Population and Sample Size

AES 2021

• Population size: 500,782 KAUs
• 429,788 units sourced using tax data from the Inland Revenue Department
• Sample size: 16,364 units directly surveyed
• 1,616 not-for-profit units were sourced from Charities Services
• There were 53,014 non-sample units (sample unit's responses are weighted up to represent these).