The survey was conducted in September and October 2015 on a sample of 4,322 industrial (excluding construction) and service firms with 20 or more workers and 592 construction firms with 10 or more workers.
Main Results
Industry excluding construction and services
- The share of firms reporting an expansion in their sales turnover in the first nine months of the year rose further to 42.3 per cent (compared with 33.2 per cent in the previous year). Less than 30 per cent continued to report a contraction. The outlook is positive for both the domestic market and the main foreign outlet markets, with the exception of emerging markets other than China.
- Positive signals are expected to persist in the coming months: the share of firms anticipating an increase in their orders between the autumn and the next spring rose to almost 40 per cent, up by 10 percentage points compared with one year earlier.
- Firms' self-assessments suggest that the direct and indirect effects of the slowdown in the Chinese economy have been moderate up to now. The depreciation of the euro would also appear to have had negligible effects on the vast majority of the firms surveyed although, among those with a greater share of sales turnover generated on foreign markets, the share reporting positive effects is larger than that reporting negative effects.
- Two thirds of firms confirmed their investment plans, which were based on expectations of a pick-up in investment; for the remaining firms, the proportion reporting a review upwards and that reporting a review downwards were almost equal.
- The pick-up in investment is expected to continue next year: the balance between expectations of an improvement versus those of a deterioration increased by almost 10 percentage points compared with the previous year, reaching 14 per cent.
- Labour demand returned to growth: in 2015 the balance between firms creating more employment and firms reducing it swung back to positive territory at about 8 percentage points, after being negative at 10 percentage points on average since the beginning of the financial crisis.
- A quarter of firms report improved borrowing conditions in the first part of the year, owing mainly to a decrease in the interest rates applied, the possibility of accessing new credit, and faster processing times. The picture is expected to remain positive in the second part of the year.
Construction and public works
- The balance of firms’ assessments concerning the trend of overall production for 2015 is slightly positive for the first time since 2007, although the outlook is still negative for public works.
- Expectations for the demand for labour are still negative: the share of firms forecasting a drop is much larger, by 13 percentage points, than that anticipating a rise.
