For a seventh straight month, employers within the Bay State are reporting that their confidence in the way forward for the economic system is flagging.
In keeping with the Related Industries of Massachusetts’ latest month-to-month Business Confidence Index, sentiment amongst Bay State employers remained in pessimistic territory via September, the identical place it’s been caught since March.
“The Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index (BCI) slipped 1.5 points to 47.5 on a 100-point scale,” the affiliate wrote of their newest month-to-month report, noting that “the September index was 5.7 points less than the same month a year ago.” September’s BCI represents a five-month low.
Sara Johnson, the chair of AIM’s Board of Financial Advisors, stated in a press release included with the month-to-month index that employers are trying to stroll a decent rope strung between obvious financial development and mercurial commerce insurance policies.
“Employers are navigating the crosscurrents of an economy that has seen robust growth recently but is vulnerable to sharp increases in tariffs, persistent inflation, and excessive federal budget deficits. Real GDP grew at an annualized 3.8 percent pace in the second quarter, but momentum is cooling,” Johnson stated.
Companies contributing to AIM’s month-to-month report, based on the affiliation, proceed to “cite uncertainty as an impediment to growth,” with one producer reporting that “until we know how the tariffs are going to be applied, and the amount, our customers have largely stopped buying.”
AIM’s September survey was carried out after the Federal Reserve introduced it will reduce rates of interest for the primary time this yr however earlier than the shutdown of the federal authorities on October 1.
Confidence reached a one-year peak in November, after the reelection of President Donald Trump, when it got here in at 57.7 factors. The BCI stayed regular at about 55 factors via December and January. It fell to about even in February, after the forty fifth president’s inauguration because the forty seventh, and employers have responded to his ongoing on-again-off-again tariff and commerce offers with hesitancy, based on AIM’s month-to-month surveys.
Regardless of their seven months of pessimism AIM President and CEO Brooke Thomson says that Bay State companies proceed to cautiously transfer ahead amidst “a swirl of political, economic and technological uncertainty.”
“Employers are concerned about international trade, the emergence of artificial intelligence and the cost of doing business in Massachusetts, but, at the same time, the Fed just lowered interest rates, unemployment has been steady, and the financial markets have surged,” Thomson stated.
AIM surveys greater than 140 Bay State companies to construct their month-to-month Business Confidence Index, the primary model of which was printed in July of 1991. In keeping with AIM, enterprise confidence within the Bay State fell lowest in February of 2009, when it was measured at 33.3%, and reached historic highs in each 1997 and 1998, with two months in both yr displaying 68.5% confidence.
