Forget the weather outside – as far as U.S. entrepreneurs are concerned, spring has sprung early this year. That’s the word from the National Federation of Independent Business, where the latest Optimism Index records near-record improvements in business owners’ expectations of increased sales and their willingness to invest in new employees and equipment.
“It doesn’t get much better than this,” says William Dunkelberg, NFIB chief economist. Prompting his celebratory mood were business owners’ December responses to the NFIB’s monthly survey, which put the Optimism Index at 106.9 – less than a point shy of the all-time high it hit back in 1983.
HIRING LINE. On the jobs front, one in five business owners reported taking on additional workers in the last weeks of 2003. At the same time, the number of jobs classified as “hard to fill” rose two points, a trend that further suggests strong employment growth in the coming months. “Substantial job creation is about to get underway,” Dunkleberg predicts.
Even more impressive were entrepreneurs’ plans for capital spending, which jumped 9 points to reflect the 38 percent of outfits where the penny-pinching austerity that marked the downturn is giving way to a renewed willingness to invest in future growth. Now, says Dunkelberg, the time has come for business to break out their dancing shoes and boogie. “The economy is ready to rock and roll,” he says.
Source: BusinessWeek Online