41% of Senior Finance Professionals Believe the Upturn Will Come in 2010

2009-05-28 15:06 - 1518 reads

The findings of a survey by UK business management and information systems provider, COA Solutions (www.coasolutions.com), has revealed that 41% of senior financial professionals believe the economic upturn will come in 2010. COA Solutions carried out the research with 100 senior finance professionals (finance directors and managers) across a range of UK public sector and private sector organisations.

27% of the respondents think that the upturn will manifest itself in 2011 and although unemployment hit 2.2 million in April 2009, the highest figure since 1996, 13% optimistically predict that the economic upturn will happen by the end of this year. One of these respondents, a financial director from a financial services company, commented, “Providing no more discontinuity skeletons emerge from the marketplace cupboard we could see the upturn starting as early as Q3.”

8% of respondents believe that the recession will not loosen its stranglehold on UK businesses until after 2011. Given the unpredictably of the current economy, perhaps unsurprisingly 11% said that they “didn’t know” when the upturn will come. One respondent, a financial director from a media company, said, “It all depends when the next general election is.”
 
Speaking at the COA Solutions Executive Briefing for Finance Professionals on 20 May 2009, Jon Moulton, Managing Partner of UK-based private equity firm Alchemy Partners, warned that the worst is yet to come: “People are mistaken if they think the upturn is around the corner and shouldn’t relax too early as trading conditions remain very unstable. In fact, the situation is the most volatile it has ever been in my working career.”
 

Moulton added, “The most optimistic scenario is that unemployment will rise throughout 2010 and peak at 3.1 million with inflation rising towards 3% by the end of 2010. In the worst case scenario, UK GDP will decline by 5% in 2009 and unemployment will continue to rise sharply through 2011 and soar to 3.8 million.”

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Editor's Welcome

 

Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.
 
But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.
 
So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....
 
Cath Everett
HRZone Editor 
 
 
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