The Bay Citizen – Bay Area Biz Still Pessimistic
The Bay Area business sector is not ready to sing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
A new quarterly survey just released by the Bay Area Council finds that gloom and doom are persisting among the region’s executives. The business policy and advocacy group gave its Business Confidence Survery to 500 CEOs and top executives in the nine-county Bay Area. To the question of whether Bay Area economic conditions are better than six months ago, 41 percent said ‘yes.’ In the last quarterly survey, 58 percent said ‘yes,’ so confidence is waning, apparently.
Still, the Council finds some positive news in its survey. The business confidence index, which is a number that distills the survey findings, was 56 out of 100 in this latest survey, and any number over 50 is judged to mean ‘positive’ economic times. Below 50 means ‘negative.’
The Council notes that this quarter’s rating of 56 represents the fourth positive reading in a row.
