Business survey reflects soaring costs

Friday 21 April 2023

An island-wide survey of Jersey businesses has shown the strain of rising costs.

Input costs were ranked as an ‘extremely negative’ indicator of business activity in the last quarter in the latest Business Tendency Survey, published by Statistics Jersey.

In March 2023, the input cost indicator, which includes supplies obtained, stocks or mterials bought in and costs of employees, had an 'extremely negative' balance of -89 percentage points (pp). This is a moderate decrease of 15 pp from the previous quarter.

The report also showed that the profitability indicator was strongly negative at -28 pp.

These figures balanced with the rise in the product prices indicator by 11 pp to rank at extremely positive (+56 pp).

The input costs indicator was strongly below its three-year mean by 35 pp, whilst product prices was strongly above its previous three-year mean by 34 pp.

Pictured: all-sector indicators, comparing March 2023 to three months previously.

While there were more negatives recorded in businesses outside the finance sector, the overall picture in finance and non-finance sectors was essentially the same as last quarter.

The headline all-sector business activity indicator was also moderately positive at +12 pp. This means that the proportion of businesses that reported an increase was 12 pp higher than those that reported a decrease.

The outlook for future business activity and the overall future employment outlook was moderately positive as well, and for finance, this was extremely positive (+50 pp).

The Jersey Business Tendency Survey (BTS) provides up-to-date information about the Island's economy every quarter.

Chief Executives and Managing Directors are asked for their opinions on the current situation of their business compared to three months earlier and their expectations for the next three months. There are eight current indicators which measure current performance relative to that of three months previously and two future indicators which measure and anticipate changes over the next three months.

Read the full report here.