Months of backlog for business hampered by COVID household contact rules

Sukhjeet Singh, owner of the mid-sized Canberra company, says isolation rules for household close contacts have caused the mounting backlog.

"We are almost three to four months behind what we are supposed to get done because every morning, or every first Monday, we get a message from an electrician or apprentice that they have been a close contact, they can't come to the work for one week," Mr Singh said.

The ACT government is expected to announce changes to household isolation rules later this week, as conversations continue between states on the eastern seaboard on how the rules will be eased.

But Mr Singh, who is also president of the Mitchell Traders Association, said not being able to keep up with demand was a heavy burden for many business owners across the community.

"Everyone is struggling and actually this is [bringing] a lot of mental stress issues to us, and it leads us to anxiety and depression," he said.

Canberra's business groups voiced their support for changes to the rules in the territory, after NSW and Victoria announced the restrictions would be scrapped from the weekend.

"The biggest handbrake on our productive capacity at the moment is staff shortages," the Australian Hotel's Association's ACT branch general manager Anthony Brierley said.

"You can lose your front of house staff, you can lose kitchen staff, you can lose housekeeping staff at the drop of a hat because they're determined to be close contacts."

"And that means that you might have taken bookings for functions or dinners and you can't service these people. You might have already sold rooms in your hotel that night, and there's just no way that you can turn the beds over in time."

Hospitality businesses, which often rely on young, casual staff who in turn are likely to live with housemates have been particularly hard done by, Mr Brierley said.

"It's younger staff living in shared houses with other people their own age, who have very active social lives, and might even work across numerous businesses."

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Canberra Business Chamber's chief executive Graham Catt agreed that the quarantine rules were forcing crises for the city's business community.

"We've seen crisis points where people can't even open a business and yet we have people that are well, actually sitting at home unable to go to work," Mr Catt said.

"Just about every industry and just about every type of business [is affected], so we're seeing people behind on orders, we're seeing people not being able to open a venue."

Experts have expressed optimism about the planned changes, saying it is likely to have little impact on rates of community transmission.

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said there would still be some measures in place for household contacts, including requiring them to wear face masks in public and a ban on attending high-risk settings such as aged-care facilities and hospitals.

"[We might] require them to take a rapid antigen test if they're going into particular indoor settings [or] they're not able to visit high-risk settings," she said.

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