More NSW small businesses are operating without employees, with experienced workers among those building enterprises around their skills and seeking greater independence and flexibility.
That shift will be in focus today when NSW Small Business Commissioner Kalina Koloff visits the Illawarra to hear from owners facing rising costs, tight margins and difficulties finding staff.
Wollongong is home to 15,855 small businesses, according to the Commission, with professional services and healthcare operating alongside the region’s construction sector.
Speaking to The Pulse Illawarra ahead of her visit, Koloff said a new generation of businesses was emerging around professional expertise.
“We’re seeing this new phase of small business emerge,” she said.
Owners were selling their expertise, knowledge and experience, often after long careers in paid employment.
Koloff said changes in working arrangements that began during COVID continued to influence how people started and ran businesses.
The Commission’s new report, NSW Small Business: A Story of Diversity and Dynamism, shows 63 per cent of NSW small businesses operated without employees in 2025, up from 57 per cent in 2021.
Knowledge-based industries now account for 27 per cent of the state’s small businesses.
Technology is helping owners change how they work. Of 524 respondents to the Commission’s survey, 47 per cent used artificial intelligence to support their business.
But flexibility and new technology have not removed the pressures on owners.
“It is a tough time to be in business,” Koloff said.
She said rising input costs, the cost-of-living squeeze and access to regional housing were making conditions difficult, while recruiting and retaining staff remained a challenge.
Koloff said businesses were responding by looking for efficiencies wherever they could.
She also wants to make it easier for small operators to compete for government work.
“I’m looking for opportunities to lower the barriers to participation for small business getting into that supply chain,” she said.
Owners generally supported regulations intended to protect consumers, businesses and workers, she said, but administration and reporting could be streamlined.
Koloff will speak in front of up to 80 businesses at Let’s Talk Small Business at Kembla Grange, hosted by Business Illawarra and Destination Sydney Surrounds South on Friday, October 16.
She will then join tourism and hospitality leaders at an invitation-only Visitor Economy Roundtable.
Koloff said she wanted to hear how local operators were trading and where they saw room for growth.
The NSW visitor economy strategy aims for $91 billion in annual visitor expenditure by 2035, with 48 per cent expected to come from outside metropolitan Sydney.
Koloff said Western Sydney Airport could bring more visitors to the Illawarra, with transport connections important to realising that potential.
“I’m hopeful that with the significant investment in the airport that the government and the community by and large will continue to get behind the Western Sydney Airport with additional transport planning and infrastructure.”