Providers of business services slightly more positive

In January, the number of business services providers anticipating turnover growth in the next three months outnumbered those anticipating a decrease by 18 percent, i.e. 4 points above the level in December. Providers of business services have been positive about their future turnover for six months now.

The number of business services providers expecting employment to decrease approximately equalled the number anticipating growth in January. In the two preceding months, the two groups were also more or less equal in size. Opinions on the economic climate also hardly changed from December to January. The number of business services providers expecting selling prices to rise was much higher than in the previous month.

Insufficient demand was considered to be an obstacle for production by 35 percent of the providers of business services. This percentage was slightly lower than in December, when 40 percent of the business services providers indicated that demand was too low.

In January, architects and engineering offices were much less pessimistic about future turnover, future employment and the economic climate than in December 2010. Temp agencies were still very optimistic, but slightly less so than in the previous month.

Expected turnover business services