Buckinghamshire survey highlights challenging trading conditions for local businesses
The Buckinghamshire Business Barometer for Q2 has indicated that cost challenges are rising across the board for more than half of respondents.
The Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Buckinghamshire Business First’s latest Business Barometer survey shows the second quarter of 2022 brought a negative change to trading conditions. This reverses some of the progress achieved following the end of Covid restrictions.
The Barometer asked Buckinghamshire businesses about future plans, 55% of respondents intend to invest in marketing/advertising over the next three months, down from 76% the previous quarter.
There was a bigger drop in those respondents intending to invest in equipment and machinery. This halved from Q1. Concern is also raised by those businesses who intend to decrease their headcount, with only 34% intending to increase headcount, down from more than half (53%) in the previous quarter.
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Philippa Batting, Managing Director, Buckinghamshire Business First, said: “The Business Barometer results help us ensure effective support is in place to support our business community in these economically challenging times. Help is at hand for businesses that are experiencing tough trading conditions with our broad range of business support packages, grant funding and advice.”
James Moorhouse, Economic and Labour Market Analyst at Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “As with each Business Barometer survey, the aim is to know how businesses have fared in the last few months in order to help build a picture of the needs and opportunities that exist in the Buckinghamshire business community.Â
"This valuable insight into the local economy is fed into our conversations with Government and other stakeholders to ensure the voice of Buckinghamshire firms is being heard nationally.”
Full findings from the Barometer survey for the second quarter of 2022 can be found on the Buckinghamshire Economic Intelligence Observatory.
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