A new survey of chief financial officers, controllers and other executives conducted by the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada has found that a growing number of those surveyed, 28 per cent, are pessimistic about the Canadian economy. These numbers are up from 24 per cent who said they were pessimistic in the second quarter of 2019.
Optimism is also waning: another 28 per cent say they are optimistic, down from the 31 per cent who reported feeling optimistic in the second quarter of the year. The largest group of those surveyed, 44 per cent said they were neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the economy’s prospects.
More upbeat about the prospects for their own businesses
Survey respondents were notably more upbeat about the prospects for their own businesses over the next 12 months: Just 18 per cent were pessimistic, while almost half of those surveyed, 48 per cent, say they are optimistic about their business’s prospects in the coming year. When assessing the future, 66 per cent say they expect their businesses will see increased revenues over the next 12 months and 59 per cent anticipate seeing increased profits while 45 per cent expect to see an increase in employee numbers in the year to come.
Of those surveyed, 10 per cent say having a minority government is the top challenge to economic growth in this country. U.S. protectionism, the state of the U.S. economy and the lack of skilled workers were all cited by 11 per cent of those surveyed as being the top challenges, while 15 per cent say general uncertainty about the Canadian economy is their top concern.
