#economy #consumers #businesses #confident
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“Americans have a whole lot of confidence in this booming economy”– Paul Ebeling a
America’s consumers have not been this confident in their prospects since the VirusCasedemic began. And for the country’s biggest businesses it does not take a look much beyond the performance of the S&P 500 and the tightening of credit spreads to see how strong businesses conditions are today.
And when big bank executives like JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon are saying the “pump is primed” for consumers to start spending, you know how he is feeling about the state of the economic recovery.
All of the recent data also shows there is broad spectrum confidence for businesses big and small.
Monday, JPMorgan Chase’s 2021 Business Leaders Outlook survey revealed that 88% of business leaders surveyed by the bank are optimistic about their firm’s prospects over the next 6 months, the most on record for the 11-yr-old survey.
“After enduring the challenges of the last year and a half, businesses are feeling overwhelmingly positive about what’s ahead,” said head economist at JPMorgan Chase commercial banking. The survey covered 1,375 business leaders from middle-market companies, or those with annual revenues between $20-500-M
The bank’s survey also shows that 75% of respondents are optimistic about both the national and their local economies, up 40% from last yr this time.
Last week the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) published its small business optimism index for the month of June, which Topped Wall Street expectations and moved above 100 for the 1st time since November. The report also showed 15% of respondents felt the next 3 months are a good time to expand; the highest percentage since February 2020.
Both reports cited challenges in hiring and concerns over inflation as Top-of-Mind hang ups for business leaders big and small.
JPMorgan’s survey showed that some 81% of businesses the firm heard from plan to increase staff over the next 6 months.
The NFIB’s data found that 63% of small businesses either did, or tried to, hire workers in June.
JPMorgan’s survey also notes that accelerated retirements are creating staffing challenges.
And as a host of data have shown from the jobs report to inflation readings and job opening surveys the economy’s recovery from its virus induced instant recession has been anything but walk in the park.
But employers competing over labor and complaining about wage demands going up is really not a huge problem when America is just 15 months removed from an almost overnight shutdown of the economy that put more than 20-M Americans out of work.
Or, as JPMorgan stated, “The focus now is on navigating growing pains to harness the momentum of the economic recovery, which is comparatively a good problem to have.”
Have a prosperous day, Keep the Faith!
