After Brexit vote, downbeat businesses may cause recession

Last Updated: August 14, 2016By
A study of more than 600 businesses shows that employers are more nervous about hiring staff since the EU referendum [Image: Peter Byrne/PA].

A study of more than 600 businesses shows that employers are more nervous about hiring staff since the EU referendum [Image: Peter Byrne/PA].

This Writer always had suspicions that economic slumps – and booms – were often the result of arbitrary decisions by bosses and pundits, rather than actual conditions.

Now, it seems, I have proof.

The surveys quoted in this Guardian article suggest that businesses are ready to cause their own recession – due to lack of investment and employment – without any evidence of a need to do so, beyond “dire predictions”.

We need better than this. It’s simply too easy to manipulate – contrary to the good of the many.

The Brexit vote has made businesses more pessimistic about their chances of success in the next 12 months and bosses have become less confident about hiring staff, two surveys show.

The comments come as economists register their concerns about the immediate prospects for the UK economy following the EU referendum, along with warnings that dire predictions might lead businesses to “batten down the hatches” and create a self-fulfilling prophecy of an economic slump.

The proportion of employers expecting to increase staffing levels over the next three months has fallen from 40% before the referendum to 36%, according to a study of more than 600 businesses published on Monday by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and employment agency Adecco.

Meanwhile, a separate survey of 170 chief executives by accountants Grant Thornton found that 49% of respondents were less confident about the year ahead, while only 8% felt more confident. More than 20% are actively planning to decrease investment, while 56% remain unchanged in their investment decisions, Grant Thornton said.

Source: Brexit vote has made businesses pessimistic, surveys show | Business | The Guardian

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4 Comments

  1. Chris Lovett August 14, 2016 at 11:57 pm - Reply

    Come out. Are you remain or leave?

    • Mike Sivier August 15, 2016 at 1:01 am - Reply

      Me? I’ve never hidden my opinion on that matter.
      So do a bit of research.

  2. Phil Woodford August 15, 2016 at 7:38 am - Reply

    Of course recessions are due to sentiment. If businesses feel that economic conditions are likely to be less auspicious post-Brexit – and there is a lot of solid economic argument for this – they start to feel doubtful about investment and employment. This is one of the reasons why I voted Remain!

  3. Zippi August 18, 2016 at 11:55 am - Reply

    I voted to leave but based purely on what the E.U. is, what it does and what it’s supposed to do. Business will do what is in the interests of the money people, not those of the rest of us. Whatever happens, those money people will be fine. We hear a great deal about business wanting certainty. We would all like certainty but the only thing of which we can be certain is that we are going to die. Everything else is speculation and these money people do that with aplomb. Don’t foll yourself into believing that these people care a poop about you, or the country. Whatever happened to that Great British spirit? Why all of the pessimism and gloom? Whatever happened to necessity being the Mother of Invention? Why does leaving the E.U. have to be the end of the world? Why can’t it be seen as an opportunity, or could it be that, because it’s not what business wants, it will create a scenario so bleak as to try to reverse the decision. There was life before the E.U. there can be life after it.

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