Swansea Bay Business Club has conducted the first of its quarterly Business Barometer surveys, with results painting another positive picture for the Swansea Bay City Region.
Members of the business community from across the region were surveyed, with responses coming from a total of fourteen different sectors, including finance, construction, manufacturing and hospitality.
54% of all those surveyed said that they began 2019 strongly and performed better in the first three months of the year than they did in the final three months of 2018. Adding to the positive outlook, an increased 58% of respondents said that they were expecting to perform even stronger over the upcoming three months.
Acting President of Swansea Bay Business Club, Alan Brayley, commented: “As a platform for businesses to voice their views and opinions we always look forward to receiving our quarterly barometer results so that we can gauge the feeling amongst the business community. As ever, we are delighted to receive such positive feedback from our members on how they have been performing in recent months and it’s great to see that over half of them have noted continued improvement and that they expect this to continue.”
Further results from the survey evidenced that 45% of respondents expected an increase in their profitability over the next month whilst just over a third said they were predicting a rise in staffing levels and capital investment (37% in both).
When asked what the single largest barriers to the growth of their business would be, the most popular responses were the availability of skilled workers (25%), global/national economic performance (21%) and price pressure from customers (16%).
Alan continued: “There will always be problems and barriers standing in the way of business growth and the problems cited by members in our region are likely to be views shared throughout the UK. With all of the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, it isn’t surprising to see that access to skilled workers and the economic performance of the country are two issues that our members are forecasting.
“As a club, we will continue to support our members and do everything we can to facilitate their needs, assist in their growth and remain prosperous in these times of uncertainty.”