National Association for Business Economics (01/26/15)

Two-thirds of respondents to a survey of 93 members of the National Association for Business Economics and selected other industry economists expect gross domestic product growth to average between 2% and 3% going forward, with 93% expecting GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2015 to be greater than 2%.

Thirty-four percent of survey respondents indicated that employment has increased at their firms. This is similar to the share of respondents who reported rising employment in the previous two surveys. Expectations for hiring in the first quarter of 2015 are stronger than those observations for the final quarter of 2014.

The survey asked panelists if their firms had difficulties filling open positions over the last three months of 2014. Of the 79 responses received, 63% indicated there was no difficulty filling open positions, although 57% of respondents from the goods-producing sector experienced difficulty filling open positions during the last quarter of the year, up from 45% in the previous quarter.