Employment expectations improve as business confidence grows
Capacity issues and fierce competition for skilled labour looks set to return as a feature of the Australian economy as firms report their strongest expectations in many years for inventory and employment growth.
These findings from the latest Dun & Bradstreet Business Expectations Survey for the June quarter follow what have already been record low unemployment levels amongst the developed world during the Global Financial Crisis.
In further positive news, Australian executives also have increased profit level expectations with the profit index reaching its highest point in five years.
Employment expectations for June quarter 2010 are five percentage points higher than the March quarter of 2010, reaching an index of 5. Eleven per cent of firms are planning to increase staff levels and six per cent to reduce employee numbers. These figures are now a 31 per cent improvement on the June quarter 2009 expected employment index figure of minus twenty six percentage points. This was the lowest record employment in the history of the survey.
Despite reports of recent falls in job advertisement numbers, all sectors now have positive expectations for growth in employment numbers. Durables manufacturers have the highest index of a net seven with 14 per cent expecting to increase employment and seven per cent expecting to decrease staff numbers.
In further good news Australian firms’ outlook for profits expectations has also continued to improve – the index of 15 for June quarter 2010 is the highest level in five years. Twenty seven per cent of Australian executives surveyed now anticipate profits will increase in the June quarter and only 12 per cent expect a fall. Executives from the retail sector have the highest profits expectations with 30 per cent expecting an increase and just 10 per cent a decrease.
The expected sales index however fell three points to 25 but retained the strong positive level of the two previous quarters. The sales index is also still up 73 points on the trough of the June quarter 2009. Thirty nine per cent of firms expect an increase in sales and 14 per cent a decrease in sales in June quarter 2010. The decline of three points in the overall index was due to a reduction of18 points from the retail sector’s expectations index of 35 for the March quarter. March was however the highest retail sales expectations index in more... Next Page
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