July 2014
Featured in this insight: Financial services, International
CFOs confident US economy will continue to improve, study shows: For the first time since 2006, more than 50% of CFOs believe that the US economy will continue to improve over the next six months, according to the latest edition of a bi-annual study conducted by Grant Thornton LLP.
More than 1,000 CFOs and other senior financial executives participated in the study, with 51% believing that the economy will grow before the year’s end. Even more encouragingly, only 7% believe it will worsen, with the remaining 42% anticipating it will remain the same.
In the years previous, just one quarter (25%) thought the economy would improve in the summer of 2012, and although optimism grew to 45% in the spring of 2013, by autumn this had fallen to two fifths (40%).
This expected growth is predicted to produce fruitful prospects for the job market too, with 46% of CFOs believing that their workforce will increase or significantly increase during the next year – 6% more than spring 2013’s figure (40%).
Almost seven in ten (68%) also believe that the average cost of an employee’s salary will increase during the next 12 months – 3% up from last year’s figure (65%).
CEO of Grant Thornton, Stephen Chipman, said: “While optimism slipped a bit in the fall – likely due to gridlock in Washington at the time – the results of our spring survey and recent improvements in key economic indicators seem to signal that the slow increase in confidence in the US economy might be back on track.”
Thornton added that the government must take further action in order for this confidence to develop into tangible economic benefits by “ensuring stability in fiscal, public and tax policies.”
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