Duke, CFO study: CFOs foresee more job cuts, credit woes - Birmingham Business Journal:

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The quarterly Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Businesss Outlook Surveyasked 1,309 CFOs worldwide abou t their expectations for the economy. Their answerx paint a gloomy picture for the rest ofthe * CFOs in the U.S. and Europ e expected employment to shrinkby 5.5 percent, with the unemploymenyt rate in the U.S. seen rising to perhaps as high as 12 percenr in the next 12 Employment in Asia is expectecd to recedeby 1.2 percent.
“Presumably, government programa will offset some ofthese losses, but even the most optimisticv government forecasts would reduce the lossew by only 2 million,” said Campbell Harvey, foundingv director of the surveyy and international business professor at Duke’s Fuqua Schooll of Business. “We’re facing the possibilit of another 4 millionlost * U.S. and European CFOs foreser capital spending plunging by more than10 percent. In Asia, CFOs anticipat e a 3 percent decline. * Six in 10 U.S.
companiews covered by the survey reported having trouble findingf credit or acquiring credit at a reasonable Among those firms encounteringcredit impediments, 42 percenty say the credit markets have gotten worse this while 23 percent say conditions have improved. * Weak consumerr demand and the credit markets ranked as the top two externaol concernsamong U.S. chief financial officers, with the federalo government’s policies coming in third. Amongy internal concerns, CFOs are losing the most slee p over their inability to plan due to economic managingtheir companies’ capital and liquidity, and maintaining employee morale.
Despitee all the negative indicators, a majority of the CFOs in the Unitedc States and Asia reported being more optimistic this quarter than they were theprevious quarter. That was not the case in where only 30 percent of the CFOs said they were more compared to the 31 perceng who said they wereless “Our survey carries an important message: Don’t put too much weight on the ‘soft’ data like consumer Recovery requires sustained confidence, and such confidence is forged by strongetr economic fundamentals,” Harvey said. “The economic fundamentals – - employment, capital spending, the cost of credit are stillfundamentally troubling.
” To see the complets survey results, go to the official Web site, .