CFO Survey: Moderate Economic Growth, Slow Job Market

Duke Univesity ^ | 6/7/2011 | Duke University

[scooby321]

DURHAM, N.C. - Optimism among chief financial officers in the U.S. has fallen, but spending plans indicate continued moderate growth over the next year. Hiring will be minimal - less than 1 percent over the next year - though many companies plan to reinstitute some employee benefits.

"CFOs are telling us we are stuck at 9 percent unemployment for the next year," said Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke's Fuqua School of Business and founding director of the survey. "One leg of the economy is shackled by extraordinarily high unemployment and the other by the housing market still in a free fall. Obviously, it is hard for the economy to move forward."

[scooby321]

Scary.

[bert]

Attrition will exacerbate the problem. For every 1.5 jobs shed to retirement or death, only 1 new hire result.

bert’s view

[jpsb]

And let’s not forget that gov federal,state and local is going to be forced (no money) to layoff too.

[JPG]

No wonder Barry thinks he needs to raise and spend a billion dollars to be reelected. He wouldn't need much at all if he knew what he was doing. Clueless FAIL.

[Dr. Thorne]

I don't believe what little optimism there is. These guys tend to paint a rosier picture that what they know to be the truth is it makes them look like winners in a loser's game.

The management of my company was telling us that we had a good business model and things would be fine back in 2008. Within months 20% of our workforce was gone andd the rest were forced to accept a 10% across-the-board pay cut.

Management, especially in the financial industries, have a very "Baghdad Bob" approach to the economy: "Everything is fine. We're doing well and will weather this current difficulty easily."

Then, the bottom drops out and they slink away to cling to their own well-fed portfolios.

[bert]

Keep in mind the predictions are made from the current level.

I think of the economy as the view from Mule Point, Cedar Mesa Utah. The mesa falls off in a near shear cliff to the valley below. The flat stretches endlessly into the purple desert haze that is Monument Valley in far away Arizona. The route down is called the Mokee Dugway.

The view from Mule Point is one of the best in all of America.

Once on the plateau below the mesa, things look quite different. One can see clearer the endless flat of the future. The CFO's are seeing from the flat, not from the mesa.