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More and more Norwegians have been vaccinated, and across large parts of the country there is now full speed towards a complete reopening of society.
The optimism is reflected in NHO’s recent membership survey, in which 2725 companies have participated. More and more companies see the situation as good, fewer have lower turnover than normal and fewer and fewer have payment difficulties.
– Although Norwegian business is still not “recovered” after the corona crisis and the hardest hit industries still have some way to go back to a more normal situation, the improvement continues quite tirelessly, despite small and large misses due to the fourth wave, sums up NHO’s chief economist Øystein Dørum.
In the recent survey, several companies also state that in future they will increase prices more than the general price increase. There are several reasons for this.
Demand, more expensive goods and shipping
30 per cent of the companies that have participated in the latest survey state that they have or will increase prices more than the general price increase. There are a few more than at the last survey in June, and are particularly visible to companies in aviation and transport.
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Among the reasons given for increased prices across industries, more expensive inputs, or raw materials, are cited as the main reason.
As many as 77 per cent state that their price increase is due to more expensive raw materials, while more expensive shipping and high demand are the other two dominant reasons for increased prices. In particular, companies in industry, construction and civil engineering cite higher raw material prices as their reason for raising their prices.
– What we see now is very unusual The prices of lumber have had a dramatic increase, but it is not as certain that profitability will improve for one of Norway’s largest sawmills. 01:60 Published: – Chief economist Dørum nevertheless emphasizes that warnings of increased prices need to become a reality. He points out that inflation for raw materials has moderated recently, and points out that it will in part be the competitive situation that determines whether it is possible to “pass on increased costs to prices”. – The signals from the companies are that this is gratifyingly also translated into increased demand for labor, which the development in unemployment and the number of vacancies also confirms. So even though it may take a long time before employment returns to pre-crisis levels in the hardest hit industries, there will be opportunities elsewhere in the economy, perhaps just a little retraining away, he says. The recent survey thus shows that NHO companies are far more optimistic than was the case just under six months ago. In April, almost as many companies rated the situation as good and considered it bad. Now 42 per cent state that they consider the situation to be good, while only 11 state that they consider the situation to be bad. 47 per cent state that they consider the situation to be satisfactory. Naturally, there are companies in aviation and tourism that are still somewhat more pessimistic than the rest of the picture, although the situation for these companies also seems to have improved since before the summer. Both the proportion who state payment difficulties, ten per cent, and those who state that they fear bankruptcy, seven per cent, are the lowest since NHO began asking about this almost a year and a half ago.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We want you to share our cases using a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms look here. –
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Continued pessimism to be traced to tourism
