Auckland's fifth lockdown - that's been going on for seven weeks - has been a "real struggle" for businesses, Infometrics principle economist and director Brad Olsen says.
Many businesses have not been able to operate in the city, which creates about 40 per cent of the nation's GDP, for nearly two months.
But on Monday the Government outlined it's three-phased roadmap out of lockdown . No dates were indicated for phase two and three, though.
Olsen on Tuesday morning told Breakfast that phase one, which comes into effect at 11.59pm on Tuesday, "doesn't do a lot" for businesses, though.
"Step two allows a bit more activity again, that retail stuff," he said.
"We're expecting that around about 77 per cent of businesses have said that they can trade online somehow so they've already been operating, that's why NZ Post has got so much work to do, but we've got another third of businesses that'll come back online at step two that'll be able to trade from their shops.
"Then at step three, again, we have hospitality - another nearly 60,000 workers who might be able to be a bit more frontline - but again, those restrictions are quite core. In Auckland alone, hospitality's in a $281 million spending hole so, again, we're talking some pretty big sums here."
Olsen said this has since flowed on to employment, adding that since this latest lockdown around 7700 more people have gone onto the job seeker benefit.
"So this is really hurting some families and I think that's the key message," he said.
"But also the key challenge is that on average the economy is still in a strong position, and I don't think we can forget that, but we also know that for a number of groups in society, for some of those vulnerable communities, for some of our businesses, things are not looking any rosier at all.
"We're counting up to $760 million worth of card spend that hasn't happened (over the past weeks in lockdown). That's a huge hole that's coming through so it is a real struggle for a number of Auckland businesses."
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