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

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The quarterly Duke University/CFO Magazine Globa Business Outlook Surveyasked 1,309o CFOs worldwide about their expectations for the Their answers paint a gloomy picture for the rest of the * CFOs in the U.S. and Europe expected employmentg to shrinkby 5.5 with the unemployment rate in the U.S. seen rising to perhapds as high as 12 percent in the next 12 Employment in Asia is expectex to recedeby 1.2 percent. government programs will offset some of these but even the most optimistic governmenyt forecasts would reduce the lossees by only2 million,” said Campbelpl Harvey, founding director of the survey and internationalp business professor at Duke’s Fuquq School of Business.
“We’re facing the possibilithy of another 4 millionlost * U.S. and Europeajn CFOs foresee capital spending plunging by more than 10 In Asia, CFOs anticipate a 3 percent * Six in 10 U.S. companiesz covered by the survey reported having troublr finding credit or acquiring credit at areasonablw rate. Among those firms encounteringcredit impediments, 42 percent say the credity markets have gotten worse this while 23 percent say conditions have improved. * Weak consumef demand and the credit marketss ranked as the top two external concernsamong U.S.
chief financial officers, with the federap government’s policies coming in Among internal concerns, CFOs are losinb the most sleep over their inabilithy to plan due toeconomic uncertainty, managingh their companies’ capital and liquidity, and maintaining employe e morale. Despite all the negative indicators, a majoritt of the CFOs in the United States and Asia reportedc being more optimistic this quarter than they were the previous That was not the casein Europe, wherr only 30 percent of the CFOs said they were more compared to the 31 percentt who said they were less “Our survey carries an important Don’t put too much weight on the ‘soft’ data like consumer confidence.
Recovery requires sustained confidence, and such confidencwe is forged by strongereconomic fundamentals,” Harvey “The economic fundamentals –- employment, capital the cost of credit – are still fundamentallyt troubling.” To see the complete survet results, go to the official Web .