Many Australian businesses are feeling optimistic about the year ahead, saying they see new opportunities for hiring and profitability in 2014.

Those are the findings of the latest Dun and Bradstreet Business Expectations Survey, which plots the outlook and opinions of many major businesses.

The assessors say capital investment and employment intentions have bounced back from a negative period in late 2013, now sitting above their 10-year average levels.

A spokesperson said minor gains in employment figures are expected to expand.

“It's clearly lifted over the last 9-12 months or so,” Dun and Bradstreet's economics adviser Stephen Koukoulas said.

“It's suggesting to us anyway that employment will start to lift to a more sustainable pace in the first half of 2014.”

Optimism is up within many businesses too, with around two-thirds saying they see unclouded growth prospects on the horizon for 2014.

Employment intention ratings for the major local firms have returned from -1.1 in the last quarter of 2013, leaping to 8.8 right now. Companies' intentions to bring in new people are at their highest recorded level in three years.

Mr Koukoulas also said the group believes a push to increase costs by some groups may cause the RBA to notch the interest rate higher.

“But more likely if the economy is stronger, if we do get a pick-up in selling prices showing up in higher inflation in the next quarter or two, then I think not only do we not have interest rate cuts coming through but the focus of the market will be more on when will the RBA start lifting interest rates and how aggressively will they do it,” the economist said.

More details from the employment section of the Dun & Bradstreet survey are available here.