Kitsap Business and Economy

By Kathy Barnard, Washington State University College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences

PULLMAN – The nation’s economic recession will end by mid-2010,
according to a recent survey of business executives in the greater
Seattle area conducted by WSU and the Seattle Executives Association
(SEA).

The survey is a cooperative effort between the WSU School of Economic
Sciences’ IMPACT (International Marketing Program for Agricultural
Commodities & Trade) Center and SEA. Results gathered through July 31 constitute the fifth quarterly survey conducted with the 120
executives who are members of SEA. They represent a variety of
industries in the area and lead small- to medium-sized businesses.

Business conditions in Seattle’s economy did not improve markedly from the first quarter of 2009; survey participants said that during the
past three months their companies’ sales, inventory and number of
employees declined slightly. They also said that during that time they
“found it somewhat more difficult to finance capital expenditures.”

“Despite the negative economic reports, business leaders are less
pessimistic than they have been for the last two quarters,” said
Justin Taylor, economic impact analyst in WSU’s IMPACT Center. “This
rise was led by improvements in business’ gross sales during the
quarter.”

The majority of respondents predicted the economic recession would
last another year, ending sometime in mid-2010.

Uncertainty about the economy was the No. 1 business concern for the
future for the survey respondents. Taylor said two different facets of
that issue arose in the survey results. While the majority were
concerned about general economic recovery, another segment of those
surveyed are worried about growing their business in a time of
uncertainty.

“The first group was dominated by comments about relying on external forces such as consumer confidence to increase and thereby improve their situation” he said. “The second group was focused on internal issues, such as product development and customer loyalty, that they needed to alter to prosper in uncertain times.”

Health care expenses and the availability of financing were the next
two concerns listed by the survey respondents. They were almost
equally split between approval and disapproval of the federal
government’s proposed plan for national health care; approximately 30
percent said that a new payroll tax should be used to pay for the plan
should it be adopted.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 9:20 am by Rachel Pritchett and is filed under Uncatagorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.