Costs causing problems for Jersey businesses

Thursday 18 October 2018

More than half of business taking part in the latest official industry survey reported that their costs are going up, with profitability falling outside of the key finance sector.

Published yesterday by Statistics Jersey, the latest Business Tendency Survey showed that, generally, most of the business performance indicators were positive.

However, profitability and "input" costs caused concern over the last quarter.

Pictured: Business activity showed a general increase across private sector organisations.

Input costs are defined as "the average cost for all inputs used by an organisation... [and] include supplies obtained, stocks/materials bought in and costs of employees, including wages, salaries and pension costs paid by an organisation."

These costs increased in the non-finance sector for 65% of companies, and 36% in the finance sector, giving an increase for 56% of companies overall. 

Pictured: The latest figures showed that input costs were a burden on the finance sector.

In the finance sector, key indicators such as profitability, future business and future employment were all positive, with only the cost of doing business showing a negative picture.

But it was a more negative picture outside the finance industry where higher costs were affecting almost two-thirds of respondents, with a knock-on effect on profitability, which fell for almost two thirds of businesses who completed the survey. 

Pictured: Profitability took a hit in non-finance sector businesses.

You can read the full survey results here.