The States of Jersey has published its quarterly Business Tendency Survey up to March 2018.
The survey, which provides qualitative information about the island’s economy, asks Chief Executives and Managing Directors to give their opinions on the state of their business compared with three months earlier and their expectations for the next three months.
Key findings
• The headline all-sector business activity indicator was +16 percentage points (pp); this means the proportion of businesses reporting an increase was 16 pp greater than those reporting a decrease
• The business activity indicator increased by 4 pp over the last three months
• Six out of the eight current indicators were positive; only profitability and input costs were negative
• The only current indicator to change by 10 pp or more was the product prices indicator, which increased by 12 pp to a strongly positive +26 pp
• The profitability indicator was positive (+18 pp) for the finance sector, but negative (-22 pp) for non-finance, resulting in an all-sector indicator of -9 pp
• Over half (54 per cent) of companies reported higher input costs, producing a strongly negative indicator of 50 pp; this was more pronounced for non-finance companies, which had an indicator of -62 pp
• The finance sector was significantly more positive than the non-finance sector in nine of the 10 indicators, eight of which were more than 20 pp higher for the finance sector
• The outlook for future business activity was positive for both the finance and non-finance sectors, with the finance sector being strongly positive
• The future employment outlook was positive (+12 pp), driven by the strongly positive finance sector (+37 pp); the indicator was neutral (+1 pp) for the non-finance sector
To view the full Business Tendency Survey click here