Employer confidence in Massachusetts soared to a 14-month high — a result that surprised people like Chris Geehern, executive vice president of Associated Industries of Massachusetts that tracks the index.
He said he had to go back and check to make sure the numbers were accurate: business confidence gained 7.8 points in November — up to 58.7 points. But Geehern said the bottom line is that employers in the state seem confident that they can ride out a seesaw of economic concerns like rising interest rates and inflation concerns.
"They see a path moving forward that they're gonna continue to grow, they're gonna coninue to generate revenue and hopefully continue to hire people," he said.
Geehern points to factors like inflation starting to moderate somewhat and supply chain issues smoothing out as some of the reasons for the confidence.
Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said that it's encouraging to see a bounceback in the AIM index.
He said that, from retailers’ perspectives, the early part of November raised some flags with consumer spending. It seemed to be slower than the first 10 months of the year — but the month ended strong with Thanksgiving weekend.
"You know, we'll see what transpires over the next month," he said. "Hopefully, the consumer continues to be relatively confident and continues to spend more than they did last year. However, there are warning flags, and those two warning flags are inflation and rising interest rates."
Hurst is hopeful that the worst has already passed when it comes to interest rates rising and inflation, but cautions a slowdown in still possible in 2023.
For Geehern, the most important statistic is that business confidence is higher than it was a year ago. And that's reflected in the fact that employers are still hiring.
"Which means they're pretty confident in how their business is going," he said. "So amid all this noise, employers seem to be pretty confident in their own business prospects."
