US economist survey optimistic, job outlook murky
By Barbara Hagenbaugh
WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Half of U.S. business economists expect firms will keep their payrolls steady over the next six months, according to a survey released on Tuesday that was largely optimistic about the economic outlook.
But the forecast for the U.S. job market remained murky. Both the percentage of economists seeing an increase in employment and the percentage seeing a decrease rose compared with the previous report released three months ago, the survey of 132 members of the National Association for Business Economics found.
On the bright side, the survey also found that demand at U.S. firms rose in the fourth quarter while the outlook for business spending, which dove in 2001, improved.
``With plans for future capital spending showing improvement and with inflation not an issue, we may be almost out of the woods and on the road to economic recovery,'' said Harvey Rosenblum, NABE president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
``Near-term economic growth is likely to be weak, however, as employment contracts over the next six months,'' he said in a statement.
In the survey, 17 percent of the respondents said they expected U.S. companies would hire workers over the next six months, up from 10 percent in the previous survey, which was released in October.
But 34 percent said they expected U.S. firms will cut workers in the first half of the year, up from 32 percent in October, the survey found. The number expecting no change in U.S. firms' payrolls fell to 49 percent in the most recent survey, which was conducted in late December and in early January, from 57 percent.
Other results from the survey include:
-- The percentage of NABE members saying they expected capital spending to improve over the next year rose to 36 percent from 22 percent in the October report;
-- The percentage of economists who said demand was rising, based on fourth quarter results, increased to 34 percent from 29 percent in October;
-- Half of the members said they expected prices charged for their products would remain unchanged over the next three months; and
-- Three-quarters of the respondents said wages and salaries were pretty much frozen in the fourth quarter, unchanged from the previous survey.
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