According to the survey conducted between 25 February and 19 March 2021 among Italian industrial and service firms with 50 or more employees, negative assessments of the general economic situation and of firms' own economic conditions eased slightly compared with the survey carried out at the end of last year. The recovery in domestic and foreign demand, especially in the industrial sector, appears to have contributed to the more favourable assessments for the first quarter. For the second quarter, firms expect sales to strengthen in both industry and services, supported by both the domestic and foreign markets.
The assessments of investment conditions also became less unfavourable and were associated with an improvement in the balance of opinions between firms intending to increase investment spending and those planning to decrease it, both for the first half of the year and for 2021 as a whole.
Firms expect an increase in employment in the second quarter of the year. For firms in industry excluding construction and in services, this trend was observed for the first time since the end of 2019. In the construction sector, the balance, which was already mostly positive in 2020, increased further.
Consumer price inflation expectations, while remaining low, rose over all time horizons, recouping the significant decline observed in the previous survey and reflecting the recent increase in the consumer price index. Firms' selling prices also started to grow again, even if to a very limited extent. Expectations for the next twelve months point to a further increase.
