The States of Jersey has released the results of its latest quarterly Business Tendency Survey, providing qualitative information about the island’s economy.
Chief executives and managing directors are asked for their opinions on the current situation of their business compared with three months earlier and their expectations for the next three months.
In December 2017
• The headline all-sector business activity indicator was +12 percentage points (pp); this means the proportion of businesses reporting an increase was 12pp greater than those reporting a decrease
• The business activity indicator increased by 5pp over the past three months
• Six out of the eight current indicators were positive; only profitability and input costs were negative
• The new business and business optimism indicators were both positive and improved from last quarter
• The only indicator to change by 10pp or more was the business optimism indicator – 27 per cent of companies said their sector was more optimistic, compared with eight per cent that were less optimistic
• The profitability indicator was strongly positive (+31pp) for the finance sector, but negative for all other sectors, especially wholesale and retail, which had a strongly negative balance of 46pp
• Almost half (45 per cent) of companies reported higher input costs, producing a strongly negative indicator of 42pp; this was more pronounced for non-finance companies, where half (52 per cent) saw higher costs
• The finance sector was significantly more positive than the non-finance sector in every indicator, and nine of the 10 indicators were more than 20pp higher for the finance sector
Future outlook
• The outlook for future business activity was strongly positive, with the finance sector much more positive than other sectors
• The future employment outlook was positive, and was also driven by the strongly positive finance sector, which had a balance of +57pp, the highest recorded to date
• The finance sector was positive about future profits and employment, with four-fifths (82 per cent) of companies expecting increased profits for 2018 and two-thirds (66 per cent) expecting to increase employment
The Business Tendency Survey report for December 2017 can be found here