Lloyds Bank business survey hits two-year high
Despite the fact that many UK companies are struggling, holiday companies are going out of business and the UK economy is set to downturn in the latter part of 2010 and 2011 the quarterly business confidence report from Lloyds Bank today shows a two-year high. The net positive balance was 18% amongst those surveyed by Lloyds Bank which compares favourably to the 16% figure for the previous quarter. So what exactly is going on?
It would appear that the vast majority of optimism in the survey is as a result of the potential to increase exports from the UK due to a relatively weak sterling. However, while the report does not suggest this, there is no doubt that the UK domestic market is beginning to struggle and more and more people are becoming concerned about their short to medium term employment opportunities. Our earlier article regarding the Scottish economy perfectly illustrates the great dependence upon the public sector employment, an area of the UK employment market which will suffer dramatic falls in the short to medium term.
It is very unlikely that the next quarterly report from Lloyds Bank will be as positive although the way the UK economy is performing at the moment it is nigh on impossible to forecast anything!
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