Home businesses bearing the brunt of power outages

Home businesses working from the eastern suburbs of Auckland are bearing the brunt of the rolling power outages following yesterday's power cut.

Home Business New Zealand, which runs a web site for home businesses (www.homebizbuzz.co.nz), has had calls from a number of home business operators who have voiced extreme frustration at rolling power outages which are affecting their ability to earn income. "What makes it worse." one member told us, "is that we never know when the power is going to go off so we can't plan for it".

Many self-employed people already fear that the economic downturn will affect their earnings, or are already feeling the pinch. That, together with the fact that because they are an "invisible" part of the business landscape, makes them very vulnerable to the whims of large power companies which decide to divert electricity from suburbia to commercial and industrial areas.

There are between 250,000 and 500,000 home businesses in New Zealand, which are estimated to contribute around $10 billion annually to the national economy.

ENDS

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