State of Trade Survey

State of Trade Survey 2010 Q2

In the second quarter of 2010, there were some encouraging signs from the FMB survey. Although workloads declined for the 10th consecutive quarter, the proportion of firms reporting higher workloads overall increased from 19% in Q1 to 32% in the second quarter. The outlook for the coming quarter is also more heartening with the same proportion of respondents (28%) reporting positive sentiment as negative. Employment prospects have also shown some improvement with a larger majority of respondents (60%) anticipating no change in staffing levels during the second half of the year.