au / speeches / 2019 / sp - ag - 2019 - 08 - 08. html 12 / 13 08 / 08 / 2019 financial stability through the lens of business | speeches | rba endnotes [ * ] i am grateful to gabriela araujo and cathie close for assistance with this speech. araujo g and t de atholia ( 2018 ), ‘ financial stability risks and retailing ’, rba they define small businesses as those with less than $ 10 million in assets, medium - sized businesses as those with more than $ 10 million but less than $ 100 million in assets, and large businesses as those with $ 100 million or more in assets. there are a variety of definitions of small business. the definition here is businesses with annual turnover less than $ 50 million. connolly e and j bank ( 2018 ), ‘ access to small business finance ’, rba araujo g and j hambur ( 2018 ), ‘ which firms get credit? evidence from firm - level data ’, rba bulletin, september. bulletin, september. bulletin, december. © reserve bank of australia, 2001 – 2019. all rights reserved. the reserve bank of australia acknowledges the aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples of australia as the traditional custodians of this land, and recognises their continuing connection to country. we pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. https : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2019 / sp - ag - 2019 - 08 - 08. html 13 / 13

speech from recovery to expansion philip lowe [ * ] governor keynote address at the australian farm institute conference toowoomba – 17 june 2021 thank you for the invitation to join the australian farm institute's conference. it is a great pleasure for me to visit toowoomba and to learn more about the issues facing the farm sector and regional australia. as we all know, the past year has been an extremely challenging one in the life of our nation. but as a country we pulled together, and we have been up to the task. the results are evident in our health and economic outcomes, which are better than elsewhere in the world. it is important that we don't lose sight of this. this morning, i would like to talk about how the economy is now transitioning from recovery mode to expansion mode, and highlight some of the issues that this raises, including for regional australia. i will then conclude with some comments about the outlook for monetary policy. back in march last year, the national economic strategy quickly turned to building a bridge to the day when the virus was contained. the idea was to use this bridge to help people and businesses get across to the other side. the hope was that by doing this, we could avoid much of the costly damage that would be caused by mass unemployment and widespread business failures. this was the right strategy, and it was supported by governments across australia, the rba and australia's financial institutions. the results speak for themselves. today, the level of employment in australia is above its pre - pandemic level. australia and new zealand are the only advanced economies where this is the case ( graph 1 ). in the united states, employment is still nearly 5 per cent below the pre - pandemic level and in spain it is 3 per cent below. graph 1 change in employment since december 2019 % - 2 - 2 - 4 - 4 - 6 - 6 n ew ze a au lan n str d et he alia sw rla it nd so zer s ut lan h ko d u re ni f te r a d anc ki ng e do ja m g pa er n m a sw ny ed c en an ad sp a ai n u ni te ital y d st at es % sources : rba ; refinitiv the gdp data also paint a positive picture of the recovery, which has been v - shaped ( graph 2 ). the level of output in australia is now above its pre - pan