Statewide, Iowa — The Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) finds continued uncertainty about factors impacting business as they survey members on their outlook for the fourth quarter.
ABI President, Mike Ralston, sums it up this way.
Ralston says finding employees continues to be a concern and has been for several years. He says one other item was more prominent in the latest survey.
He says businesses have been doing a lot of creative things to deal with the supply chain problems.
He says it doesn’t look like supply chain issues are going to go away anytime soon.
ABI has 1,500 member companies of all types and sizes in all 99 counties employing more than 330,000 workers. Ralston says one thing stands out among all the concerns about supply chain issues, inflation, and finding workers.
Thirty-seven percent of respondents expect sales to expand in the third quarter of the year. That’s a decrease from 48 percent in the third quarter and 60 percent for the second quarter of 2022. Eighteen percent expect sales to retract, a five percent increase from last quarter.
