Shortage of staff in several business sectors

The economic tendency indicator, which summarises households’ and companies’ views on the economy, fell from 106.3 in March to 104.6 in April. This is the third month in a row that the economic tendency indicator has fallen, but it still points strongly towards strong growth in the Swedish economy.

The confidence indicators for manufacturing industry and households fell in April. However confidence is still relatively high in the industrial companies, while households are more pessimistic than normal, at least about the Swedish economy. The confidence indicator for building and construction did not significantly change and continues to indicate a very strong position, while the indicators for retail trade and private service industries increased somewhat.

Companies’ estimation of prevailing demand remains at a relatively high level, but has moderated somewhat in recent months. The proportion of companies who say they have a workforce shortage, which is a trend that has been rising since mid-2013, rose further in April from 26 per cent to 28 per cent. The companies’ recruitment plans are more optimistic than normal and indicate increased employment in industry and commerce generally in the next three months. The only sector announcing a reduction in the number of employees is manufacturing industry.

Overall, prices are stated to have increased somewhat in industry and commerce in the last three months, although the number of companies reporting price rises has fallen somewhat since January. Companies continue to be relatively satisfied with profitability.

Indicators

Note. The standardisation of the Economic Tendency Indicator means that it cannot be calculated as a weighted mean of the levels of the sector confidence indicators.

The indicators are revised each month when the time series are seasonally adjusted. The values will often then move slightly up or down.

The situation is: ++ very strong, + strong, = normal, - weak, -- very weak.

The confidence indicator for the total industry is obtained by weighting the confidence indicators for building and civil engineering, manufacturing, the retail trade and the private service sector on the basis of the number of employees in the population. These weights are different to those used in the calculation of the Economic Tendency Indicator.

The confidence indicator for the private service sector has been estimated for January 1996 to November 2001 on the basis of quarterly series for a limited number of service industries.

Household expectations on inflation and interest rate