Business climate brighter to Westchester companies
Business owners and executives in Westchester County ended the year more optimistic about the business climate for their companies than they”™ve been through most of the last five years, according to the fourth quarter Westchester Business Confidence Index recently released by The Business Council of Westchester.
Launched by the Business Council in the fourth quarter of 2008 as its members struggled in the Great Recession, the index is designed and conducted by DataKey Consulting L.L.C. of Mount Kisco. It focuses on key business metrics such as staffing level trends, top-line revenues, bottom-line profits, capital spending budgets and other industry performance data.
DataKey reported a fourth quarter confidence index reading of 66 on a scale of 1 to 100, up more than 7 points from the third quarter of 2013. It was second highest confidence reading since the survey began, topped only by a 66.3 reading in the second quarter of 2011. That high show of optimism plummeted sharply to 41.6 in the third quarter of 2011.
The index was launched five years ago with a low confidence rating of 27. In the fourth quarter of 2009, it climbed to 52, and surpassed a 60 reading for the first time in the first quarter of 2011. Fourth-quarter confidence in 2013, though, was not much higher among responding business owners and managers than at the close of 2012, when the index reading was 65.8. Optimism in the business climate dropped in the first half of 2013 to 58.5 on the index in last year”™s second quarter.
“These numbers are encouraging as they are strong signals that the economy is improving, but we”™re not ready to pop open the Champagne just yet,” Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council of Westchester, said in a press release. “There”™s a lot of work that needs to be done on property taxes, regulations and economic development. We will continue to work with our members and partners on the federal, state and local levels to ensure the positive momentum continues in 2014.”
Despite a dropping unemployment rate in Westchester in October and November, DataKey consultants said businesses remain cautious about the near future, concerned about higher cost of living expenses and local regulatory controls.
One unnamed Business Council member responding to the survey said, “Employment in Westchester is still fractured. High skill/wage is better but middle and low skill/wage is struggling.”
“It is tough going out there,” another unnamed business owners responded, “but we are slowly gaining ground. Business levels and investment are picking up, if we don”™t shoot ourselves in the foot with higher business taxes, we think 2014 has reasonable growth potential for our firm and our industry.”
The state”™s newly launched health care exchange, a major focus of Business Council educational outreach to members in 2013, also was a subject of the year”™s final confidence index.
The vast majority of responding companies said that they are already offering insurance to their employees. Of Westchester companies with less than 50 employees, only 4 percent said their company already had enrolled in the state health exchange, while 13 percent said they plan to enroll in 2014.
Among survey respondents who visited New York”™s health exchange website, about two-thirds said it was relatively easy to navigate the site, but most were not fully satisfied with the insurance plan offerings.
The federal government”™s troubled Affordable Care Act website proved more difficult for Westchester business visitors, only 15 percent of whom responded that it was easy to extremely easy to navigate the site.