Retail recession hits and services could be next

Deloitte Access Economics has been warning of a looming "retail recession" - marked by two consecutive quarters of real retail turnover decline - for several months.

In the latest edition of the group's retail forecast report, Deloitte Access Economics partner David Rumbens warned of a broader "consumer recession" - which would include a pullback in services as well as goods - at some point this year.

"High inflation and rising interest rates have eroded the purchasing power of consumers and, in response, consumer sentiment is now at historically pessimistic levels," Mr Rumbens said. 

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said while he wouldn't make predictions about whether the country was heading towards a recession, there were difficult economic challenges ahead.

"We've got an economy that's shuddering to a halt at the same as inflation is rising," he told Sky News on Thursday.

"This is a very dangerous blend.

"I'm old enough to remember the last time we saw these kinds of circumstances in the '70s and the '80s. 

"It took a long while to unwind, and once you let it get away, it's very hard to fix."

Mr Taylor said recent figures showing just 0.2 per cent growth in the economy in the March quarter, down 0.6 per cent in the three months to December, was cause for concern.

"We've got a government that's asleep at the wheel and doesn't want to take responsibility for the circumstances and looking for anyone to blame other than themselves," he said.

"We've got productivity falling off a cliff like nothing we have ever seen before."

Mr Rumbens said it was undeniably a grim time for retailers but there were some silver linings on the horizon, including the expected influx of migrants.

About 400,000 migrants are expected to land in Australia in 2022/23 and 315,000 in 2023/24.

Thanks to the upcoming population growth, Deloitte economists are expecting retail turnover to lift from a 0.7 per cent decline across the 2023 calendar year to 1.3 per cent growth in 2024.

The return to real wage growth sometime in 2024 should also support a turnaround in spending.

"This would not be a boom - indeed, it's still below the expected rate of population growth," Mr Rumbens said.

"But it is better than the recent picture of going backwards, and the anticipation of sales growing once again may allow consumer and retailer sentiment to start improving towards the end of 2023."

The retail slowdown has not been felt evenly, with food sales growing by a healthy 1.7 per cent in real terms in the past six months.

Sales for non-food retail, however, fell by 3.7 per cent.