BusinessFirst Charlotte Confidence Index
A partnership between the City of Charlotte, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Workforce Development Board, and the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute announces the establishment of the BusinessFirst Charlotte Confidence Index. Created to assess the opinions of Charlotte business executives pertaining to local and national economic trends and how they expect their business to perform, the BusinessFirst Charlotte Confidence Index will produce quarterly reports focused on expectations of the coming quarter.
This forward-looking index will provide an early indicator of future economic activity in Mecklenburg County based on the opinions of local business executives. The index will help Charlotte leaders plan for expanded economic development initiatives, as well as provide much needed data about the possible expansion or contraction of industries over time.
The index and methodology is modeled after successful business confidence index initiatives at the University of Colorado’s LEEDS School of Business and the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama. Business executives’ economic expectations for the upcoming quarter will produce measures for sales, profits, hiring plans, capital expenditures, local and national economic outlook, and a composite index to gauge a real-time sense of the future economic climate in Mecklenburg County. Sponsors of the index hope that it will become an important quarterly barometer of future economic activity in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
The index will be based on a quarterly online survey of business executives in Mecklenburg County. Recruitment of those business executives is now underway, with the survey for the inaugural index report (focusing on expectations for the 2nd quarter of 2011) to be conducted the first two weeks of March. To assure the legitimacy of participants and survey results, business executives are being asked to provide information during the registration process that will be utilized for verification and give validity to the survey itself. The results of the inaugural index report will be released the last week of March.
In addition to the City of Charlotte and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Workforce Development Board, financial support for the BusinessFirst Charlotte Confidence Index is also being provided by Advantage Carolina.
For more information, or to register your company as a participating partner, click here.
Staff Contact: Jonathan Kozar (704) 687-2681.
Photograph by Nancy Pierce
