If you’re sick to the back teeth of hearing about the recession, the credit crunch and how dismal things are generally – we have some good news for you. Well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit. The good news is that things haven’t gotten any worse.
Business confidence might still be languishing at its lowest ever level in recent years, but for the first time since April 2007 it didn’t plummet further over the last quarter.
So, for the first time in over a year, business owners’ confidence has remained stable in the three-month interval since the last index was compiled. Cause for celebration? Bank of Scotland seems to think so. This uplifting news was delivered after the bank compiled its most recent Small Business Confidence Index.
According to Bank of Scotland, many business owners believe they have now felt the worst effects of the credit crunch. This might be true, but to draw this conclusion from this set of data seems a little bit optimistic. Entrepreneurs’ recruitment plans are even more measured than they were just three months ago. Just 11% of small businesses are planning to hire staff over the next year compared to 16% in the last quarter. Similarly, just one in six entrepreneurs think it’s a good time to be running a business in the UK, which represents a drop of 4% since the last index was put together.
Perhaps they are referring to the fact that only 77% of business owners think economic conditions will continue to worsen, compared to 83% last quarter?
Of course the banks, who some might say got us into this mess in the first place, are unlikely to paint a bleak picture of small business owners’ outlook. Their analysis of what it means may be a little over eager, but it’s still nice to have a break from the doom and gloom.