The Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting (IER) has released the 28-th monthly enterprise survey “Ukrainian business in wartime” for August 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 28-th wave lasted from August 14 – 30, 2024.
The enterprise managers compared the work results in August 2024 with July, assessed the indicators at the time of the survey (August 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 28-th monthly enterprise survey:
- In August 2024, against the background of problems with access to electricity, business expectations are ambiguous and somewhat contradictory.
- Although the recovery of business activity has slowed significantly compared to last year, medium-term expectations, which declined last month, are beginning to improve again.
- At the same time, the companies’ long-term plans remain consistently positive and unchanged.
- The Business Activity Recovery Index continued its downward trend, while the Industrial Confidence Indicator remained unchanged for the third month in a row.
- Production indicators continue to deteriorate gradually, but the trend to expect deterioration in the short term has stopped.
- The total share of businesses operating near full and full capacity is the lowest since spring 2022.
- The growing difficulties in finding workers with the necessary qualifications have stopped, and the managers of enterprises expect an increase in the number of workers.
- Expectations regarding the rate of growth in prices of raw materials and finished goods have slowed down.
- “Power outages” remained in first place on the list of obstacles with a decrease in significance, while “unsafe to work” decreased in significance and shared third place with “rising prices”.
- At the same time, with an increase in significance, “lack of labor” was in second place in the rating of obstacles.
- Negative assessments of the government’s economic policy have increased significantly.
