The Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER) has released the 27-th monthly enterprise survey “Ukrainian business in wartime” for July 2024.
The goal of the project is to quickly collect information on the current state of the economy at the enterprise level.
The field stage of the 27-th wave lasted from July 16-31, 2024.
The enterprise managers compared the work results in July 2024 with June, assessed the indicators at the time of the survey (July 2024), and gave forecasts for the next two, three, or six months, depending on the question. In certain issues (where indicated), the work results were compared with the pre-war period (before February 24, 2022).
This survey uses a panel sample that includes 500+ enterprises located in 21 of 27 regions of Ukraine, including Vinnytsya, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattya, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyy, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi and Chernihiv regions and the Kyiv city.
Main results of the 27-th monthly enterprise survey:
- Against the background of problems with electricity in July 2024, a sharp slowdown in the recovery rate and a significant deterioration in business expectations for six months (although they remain positive) were recorded.
- Instead, the rate of decline in short-term optimism has stopped, and long-term business plans have even improved somewhat.
- The Business Activity Recovery Index decreased three times, while the Industrial Confidence Indicator did not change significantly.
- Production indicators continue the trend of gradual deterioration, and expectations remain unchanged.
- The rate of reduction in the number of workers has slowed down, while at the same time, the difficulties in finding workers with the necessary qualifications have sharply increased again.
- Expectations regarding changes in the prices of raw materials and finished goods continue to grow.
- "Power outages" remained in the first place in the list of obstacles with a significant increase in importance, and "unsafe to work" retained the second place in the list of barriers to doing business.
- At the same time, with increasing significance, "labor shortage" closes the top three obstacles.
- Neutral assessments of the Government's economic policy have significantly increased, and uncertainty of assessments has decreased.
- The average loss of working hours due to power outages was 14% in June 2024.
