Dubbo Chamber of Commerce president Matt Wright says there should be consideration of an extension of the JobKeeper payment for industries that are "going to face huge challenges" when JobKeeper ends in fewer than 90 days.
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He identified the tourism and accommodation sectors and businesses servicing them as some of the industries that are "potentially going to suffer" when the wage subsidy program runs out.
The JobKeeper scheme is legislated until September 27 but is being reviewed, with the outcome to be announced on July 23 and there are calls to extend it beyond the cut-off date.
The $1500 fortnightly JobKeeper payment was the third federal government stimulus in response to the COVID-19 crisis and kicked into play on May 1.
Mr Wright said it had been "a lifesaver" for many businesses.
"I'd hate to think how many of those businesses would still have their doors open today if they weren't receiving that JobKeeper stimulus," he said.
"And it has its pros and cons, with respect to how it was rolled out and how it was calculated, but it certainly was a lifesaver.
"But with the closing date rapidly approaching, it's making a lot of businesses quite nervous about how they might look when it all runs out."
The chamber president said there was no doubt some businesses and industries receiving JobKeeper were now in a "recovery phase" and it looked like they had "bounced back relatively quickly".
But that was not the case across the board.
"There are industries that are going to face huge challenges, especially those ones that do rely on people holidaying in the region, those tourism, accommodation-related type businesses and even businesses that service those industries," Mr Wright said.
"They're the ones that are potentially going to suffer when this ends and I think there's got to be some consideration towards those businesses, an extension of JobKeeper for those associated industries, definitely."
Mr Wright encouraged the city's recipients of JobKeeper to ask themselves what their business would look like once the stimulus ended.
"Do they need to reshuffle staff, do they need to change their opening hours, do they need to look at further managing costs," he said.
"Start renegotiating with their lenders or other creditors, some different arrangements.
"So there's so many things that businesses will need to consider about how their business might look when the stimulus ends, and with the clock ticking it's something they need to start considering right now."