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The ICAEW’s Business Confidence Monitor tracks a wide range of key economic indicators, quarter by quarter. It not only offers a strong steer of the overall direction of the economy, highlighting the key concerns and illustrating what is driving change.
The results of q3’s survey were released recently and a summary of results is available below with the full report to download here.
• Business confidence drops again – as fitful economic recovery continues
• Confidence index points to barely any growth in Q3 2012 having implied decent growth in Q2; while exact quarterly profile is uncertain, fitful profile for 2012 looks more certain
• Key revenue and profit growth indicators fall back in Q3
• Exports still growing relatively well but can’t escape slowdown in global trade as global economy stutters into the second half of 2012
• Business capital investment plans modest amid uncertainty
• Labour market appears relatively resilient although hiring growth expectations weaker than before crisis
• Inflation pressures are easing – undershoot in 2013 now looks likely
Alongside this, promising figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed a fall in unemployment of 46,000 between April and June compared to the previous three months. There are now 2.56million people unemployed – the lowest for almost a year.
Post by Simon Speak, Director at AFR Consulting