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Posts with tag business conditions

March consumer confidence index plunges to a 35-year low

Posted Mar 25th 2008 11:40AM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Bad news, Consumer experience, Economic data

U.S. consumer confidence is at its lowest level since the Nixon Administration of the 1970s, according to one measure. U.S. consumer confidence fell in March 2008 to 64.5 -- a 35-year low -- the Conference Board announced Tuesday.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected the index to drop to 73.0 in March 2008. The February 2008 index was revised to 76.4.

The board said that consumers' evaluation of present-day conditions weakened significantly. Those claiming business conditions are "bad" increased to 25.4% from 21.3%, while those claiming business conditions are "good" declined to 15.4% from 19.1%. Consumers' assessment of the job market was considerably more pessimistic than last month. Those saying jobs are "hard to get" rose to 25.1% from 23.4%, while those claiming jobs are "plentiful" decreased to 18.8% from 21.5%.

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Economic trends in small business

Posted Mar 16th 2008 1:40PM by Gary E. Sattler
Filed under: Management, Industry, Economic data, Small business, Federal Reserve

chess gameA recent report published by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) gives indications that although American small businesses are certainly tightening their game plans a bit, they are by no means going down for the count. The report reviews a number of important indicators, testing everything from optimism to inventories. A casual read of the complete survey provided in PDF format, provides proof that while small businesses are actively adjusting to current economic trends, in many ways they're simply applying some timely critical thinking within a "business as usual" format.

Some statistical highlights that I picked out from the report really gave me pause to wonder. For instance, 46% of the business owners responding reported that when attempting to hire new employees, they were faced with a lack of qualified applicants for the jobs they wished to fill. Overall the survey indicates that current and pending employment opportunities are steady to strong for 2008, while the available labor pool remains tight. We could speculate that depressed entry level wage scales have some bearing on this situation.

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Last updated: July 06, 2008: 06:27 PM

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