Europe’s CFOs are planning spending and hiring sprees despite uncertainty
Finance chiefs from across Europe are planning a number of measures to push forward growth at their companies, undeterred by high levels of uncertainty.
According to Deloitte's spring survey of chief financial officers, almost half (46 per cent) expect to increase capital expenditure in the next 12 months, up from 42 per cent in Autumn.
This was despite a drop in optimism, with only 38 per cent of CFOs more optimistic than they were three months ago, down from 43 per cent in the last survey.
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“Despite higher levels of uncertainty and the mood turning from optimistic to normal, Europes CFOs remain confident about the future," said David Sproul, senior partner and chief executive of Deloitte North West Europe. "A growing number now consider this a good time to take on risk, invest and increase headcount."
Hiring is on the rise, with 42 per cent of CFOs planning to increase employee numbers compared to 38 per cent in the second half of 2017.
But the growth was led by countries other than the UK, especially its neighbours France and Ireland, where 69 per cent of CFOs want to ramp up hiring.
In contrast, just 18 per cent of British-based CFOs want to increase headcount in the next year.
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Across the whole region, CFOs are concerned about a dearth of skills. A shortage of skilled labour made it into the top three worries in 11 out of the 20 countries surveyed.
Half of the respondents also believe that a major cyber-attack is likely, and a rise in protectionism was also widely expected to take place.
Despite uncertainty following the Italian elections, European finance bosses are mostly not convinced that a Eurozone crisis will emerge. However, 32 per cent said if this did happen it would have the biggest impact on their company's outlook.
Read more: Eurozone inflation falls to add to European Central Bank QE quandary
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