The Institute of Directors in Guernsey has opened its second economic confidence survey to gather data into business sentiment in the Bailiwick.
Results from the first edition, launched earlier this year in June, revealed that business leaders felt confident in their own organisation’s prospects over the next 12 months, despite revealing a negative sentiment towards the island’s overall economic outlook.
When asked about the negative impacts on their businesses, respondents rated air and sea links, cost and availability of labour and skills shortages/skills gaps as the top three concerns, followed by shortage of housing for employees and compliance with government regulation.
The Committee for Economic Development responded directly to the results of the first survey, and the results were taken into consideration by the States of Guernsey Data and Analysis Service when putting together the island’s 2024 GDP forecast. The responses also informed the Institute of Director’s response to island policy matters.
The second survey, which will be open to Institute of Directors (IoD) members until 4 November 2024 and takes only a few minutes to complete, will start to build a picture of trends and the impact of changing local and international factors on businesses in the Bailiwick.
“We were very encouraged to see Deputies and civil servants respond to the first set of data and now we can start to build a picture of the trends – of both local confidence and the impact of external factors,” said Richard Hemans (pictured), the IoD’s local lead on the economy.
He continued: “This kind of information is both a helpful benchmark within the local business community, but also provides up to data information for our government which is critical for policy decision making.”
