That sobering comment comes from Campbell Harvey of Duke University in a Triangle Business Journal story about Duke’s latest quarterly survey of CFOs on how they view the economy and their outlook for the future. Dismal, to put it mildly.
Twenty-one percent of companies say they are actively hiring, with the strongest activity in the tech, retail/wholesale and energy sectors. Jobs in high demand include engineers, product development, sales force and finance/accounting.
However, U.S. companies expect domestic employment to increase by just 0.7 percent over the next year.
“CFOs are telling us we are stuck at 9 percent unemployment for the next year,” said Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and founding director of the survey. “One leg of the economy is shackled by extraordinarily high unemployment and the other by the housing market still in a free fall. Obviously, it is hard for the economy to move forward.”
Meantime, there’s polling data from CNN showing that 48 percent of Americans believe a depression is likely in the next year — a record high.
Obama’s dropping numbers come as Americans’ fears that the country is headed into another Great Depression are higher than they’ve ever been in the CNN poll. In all, 48 percent of those surveyed said another great depression is likely in the next 12 months, while 41 percent said the same in 2009 and 38 percent said so in 2008. A slight majority – 51 percent – said they don’t think the economy will plunge into a deep depression.
Yes, economic policies DO have consequences. Welcome to the consequences of President Obama’s policies of government growth and intervention, and massive spending, debt, and regulation.
