Business SA says the high unemployment rate in country South Australia is driving down business and consumer confidence.

The latest Bank SA index shows business confidence in the state’s regions has fallen since February.

Consumer confidence is also down, at 96.2 points, indicating people are more pessimistic than optimistic across regional SA.

Business SA chief executive Nigel McBride says it is due to a lack of job security.

“Consumer confidence is strong when you’ve got certainty and when you’ve got a job and we are facing concerning record high unemployment on a consistent basis, so it’s hard to be buoyant when you’re worried about your job, so that will drive consumer confidence down,” he said.

Mr McBride says the only way to reverse the trend is to create more jobs.

“What we need to do is to frankly make it easier and more cost-effective to create jobs in the private sector,” he said.

“We’ve got to say to those small to medium sized employers, what do you need to be able to create that extra apprenticeship, that extra trainee role, that extra employment role?”