The energy crisis, the escalation of inflation and the rise in interest rates draw a complicated scenario for Spanish citizens and companies, to the point that 85% of executives assess the economic situation of the country as regular, bad or very bad, according to the ‘Perspectivas España 2023’ report produced by KPMG and CEOE.
Despite these data, seven out of ten businessmen say that the situation of their business is very good and, moreover, they expect their sales to increase throughout the year. Similarly, half say they will invest more. However, this increase will not be transferred to the hiring of new workers: 62% of organizations do not plan to increase their workforce.
In 2022, 46% of employers believed the number of workers on the payroll would increase, but now that percentage has fallen to 38%. For its part, and 12% confess that it will have to reduce its workforce, while 50% will maintain it.
In addition to workforce recruitment forecasts, more than half of managers (59%) say their organization struggles to onboard the talent it needs. Given this, 65% agree that Talent shortages jeopardize your business goals.
Respondents indicate, however, that the talent attraction and retention This is one of the main challenges for the next three years (57%) and almost half (49%) place this area among their strategic priorities for 2023.
In this sense, the President of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, insisted on the need to promote effective support measures for companies to maintain the economy and employmentas well as a framework of political stability and regulatory quality that generates a favorable investment climate.
The president of KPMG in Spain, Juanjo Cano, for his part, believes that, given the caution required by the current context, the expectations of Spanish businessmen regarding the evolution of their organizations are optimistic and reflect their confidence in the increasing sales, promoting investment and maintaining employment.
Inflation, one of the main threats
On the other hand, businessmen have also expressed concern about the political uncertainty because of the various electoral nominations that are coming (46%), because, according to them, they can put the economy in danger. Thus, 36% place regulatory changes among the threats to their business.
But that’s not his only concern: The effects of inflation are one of the most feared problems. And it is that 69% of managers say that the price increase has had a strong or very strong impact on the profit margins of their organization and 54% consider it to be one of the main dangers for the Spanish economy in the short term.
For this reason, more than half of respondents (52%) have changed their prices to reflect rising costs and 31% plan to do so within the next twelve months, meaning that more than 80% have raised their prices or will do so soon.
Similarly, 45% have renegotiated their contracts with suppliers and 32% plan to do so this year. So the development of measures to mitigate inflation It is one of the strategic priorities of 53% of managers.