State business confidence index spikes

BOULDER – Colorado businesses are looking to hire as their managers are professing growing optimism about their prospects, a survey conducted by the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business found.

The school released results of its quarterly business confidence index Friday. The Leeds Business Confidence Index found that executives have the highest level of optimism since the second quarter of 2006, and for the first time in months that optimism is leading to plans to hire new workers.

The index’s numerical value hit 56.8, a dramatic increase from the index of 48.6 when the report was last released at the start of the first quarter of 2011. An index of 50 is neutral, with anything above that indicating positive expectations.

The score is at its highest level since the second quarter of 2006, and that means good news for Colorado workers, said Richard Wobbekind, director of the Leeds School’s Business Research Division, which conducts the survey.

“A continued upward trend in all of the indicators suggests that Colorado business leaders see sustained growth over the next quarter and even beyond,” Wobbekind said. “Higher sales and profits are fueling a lot of the business confidence that is out there now, and this is clearly turning into plans to invest in capital equipment and hiring more people, which is very important for the long-term growth of the economy.”

The index measuring hiring plans increased to 56.3, up from 52.5 percent from the previous index.

The optimism comes at a time when the state unemployment rate has been inching up. The two might be linked, Wobbekind said.

“One of the things that happens with the unemployment rate is it typically goes higher as firms start to hire because people who have been out of work start to come back into the workforce again,” Wobbekind said.

Links to the full report can be found online at leeds.colorado.edu/lbci.

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