December 7, 2009
Queensland appears to have weathered the worst of the financial crisis, with 60 percent of CEOs admitting they are likely to hire in the next six months, according to the latest CEO Financial Index.
CEO Institute (Queensland) Chief Executive Sue Forrester says major Queensland businesses are emerging from the GFC with a more focused view of their activities.
“While there is a more positive sentiment out there, there is also caution – the survey shows that as a result of measures taken during the down-turn, it appears CEOs will ensure profitability recovers first before there is a significant increase in investment in capital or people,” Forrester says.
“The Index figure is driven by a very positive rating for the direction in which the economy is heading, with 77 percent of respondents seeing it as heading in the right direction, and only 10 percent viewing it negatively,” she says.
As a result, 60 percent of CEOs admit they are likely to hire in the coming months while only 25 percent say they are unlikely to hire.
Meanwhile, 44 percent of respondents say they are likely to invest, while 43 percent are likely to remain at current levels.
Almost half the business leaders (49 percent) expect an increase in profit compared to 34 percent who did not.
According to Forrester, respondents indicated the biggest impact on their business in the next 6 months would be government spending (16 percent), performance of the resources industry (13 percent) and business confidence (11 percent).
Other concerns were: interest rates, exchange rates and the price of commodities.
CEOs say the biggest impact on their business in the past 6 months has been business confidence (15 percent), the banking and finance sector (13 percent), the government (10 percent) and government spending (8 percent).
Results show the most important lessons CEOs had learned from coping with the global financial crisis were: to get the basics right (15 percent), to be flexible (13 percent) and securing finance (11 percent).
The CEO Financial Index is a commissioned quarterly survey of The CEO Institute’s Queensland members (the CEOs and leaders of the state’s largest private and public companies and professional firms) and tracks expectations for the future of business and the economy.