specialreport
How’s it going?
Depends on who you ask
Respondents to
our 2012 Outlook
Survey were
evenly divided on
where the U.S.
economy was
headed this year.
But most are still
upping their
budgets for
transportation
services.
Three years after the official end of the Great Recession, there’s no clear consen- sus among DC VELOCITY’S readers on where the economy is headed in 2012. Respondents to our annual Outlook reader survey were almost equally divided
in their opinions: positive, negative, or simply not sure. That same uncertainty is
reflected in their views of their own companies’ revenue prospects and in their overall logistics budgets. In fact, there was only one thing almost all of the 189 respondents to this year’s survey agreed on: Oil prices will head up in 2012.
Just 39 percent of the respondents to the online poll, which was conducted in
November, said they were optimistic about the direction the U.S. economy would
take in 2012. That’s the lowest percentage since our 2009 survey, when just 23 percent
expressed optimism about the economy. It’s also a significant drop from the percentage of respondents who were upbeat about the economic outlook for 2011 ( 52 percent) and 2010 ( 56 percent).
Meanwhile, about one-third of this year’s survey
respondents ( 34 percent) said they were pessimistic
about business conditions in 2012, up from 22
percent last year. And here’s that nagging sense
