Inc.com posted this howler today – Fearing Economic Uncertainty, Companies Put Spending Plans on Hold. Obviously, this type of story sounds like it will have an impact on our business for the remainder of the year.
The opening sentence:
Gloomy economic reports in recent months have many small and midsize businesses rethinking spending plans, a pair of new surveys show.
Most of the stories I have read have mentioned how strong the economy is right now so I was taken aback by this revelation. The rest of the article speaks to CEO’s slowing everything down this year. I went back and clicked on the link found in that first sentence that takes you to the “gloomy economic reports.”
Some of the “gloomy” economic data from those reports:
- Year-to-date small business hiring is down .3% (not great, but it does not discuss large company or government hiring for the year)
- Incomes are up 7.1% from July 2005
- In July, personal consumption expenditures increased 0.8%…This represents the sharpest increase in consumer spending since January.
- U.S. chain stores reported sales 3.6% higher than during the same week in 2005. In July, U.S. chain stores reported sales 3.5% greater than the previous July.
I freely admit that I am a psych major so economics is a foreign language to me. This data all looks like extremely positive news and would seem to be supportive of an expanding economy. I expect hiring will continue at a strong pace for the remainder of 2006 in spite of these contradictory survey results.