How are you feeling about the UK's economic prospects for 2024?
- Thread starter graceks
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It's so difficult to take a properly informed view. Inflation rate might well have dropped but consumer prices won't ever go back to the way they were pre-Covid or even pre-Truss. Interest rates, although there are signs they are dropping, are still way higher than many people can remember. House prices are going down (or are they ?) and, in general, people have far less disposable income than they have been used to. All of this feeds into great uncertainty about the short and medium term future with possible / probable political change just around the corner.
One thing is for sure, most people need to prop up their income now to provide for their and their family's future.
One thing is for sure, most people need to prop up their income now to provide for their and their family's future.
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I think many companies shed more staff than they needed and we will see a bounce on recruitment needs BUT whether companies can afford to pay what people can afford to live on is another matter.
I think the current govt will be trying to square the circle of keeping home owners/landlords not feeling poorer whilst also making renters feel there is light at the end of the tunnel - this will be the defining economic question in an election year as what they do on it affects the entire rest of the economy (particularly as we are services led where the big input is wages whose inflation is heavily influenced by housing costs)
I think the current govt will be trying to square the circle of keeping home owners/landlords not feeling poorer whilst also making renters feel there is light at the end of the tunnel - this will be the defining economic question in an election year as what they do on it affects the entire rest of the economy (particularly as we are services led where the big input is wages whose inflation is heavily influenced by housing costs)
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Despite the challenges I sill believe that it will be a good year for those that are willing to look after the customer and go the extra mile
Since the pandemic many companies have reduced hours ,reduced their customer service experience and cut back on stock levels and operating hours.
Knowing your competitors and capitalising on what they are not doing will give your firm a big advantage.
Just remeber there are trillions and billions of Euros ,Pounds and Dollars floating around out there . if you bring value to the market you may get a nice share of it
Since the pandemic many companies have reduced hours ,reduced their customer service experience and cut back on stock levels and operating hours.
Knowing your competitors and capitalising on what they are not doing will give your firm a big advantage.
Just remeber there are trillions and billions of Euros ,Pounds and Dollars floating around out there . if you bring value to the market you may get a nice share of it
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I feel a lot more uncertain about the outlook for 2024 now compared with how I felt before the latest Yemen aspect of the current web of international tensions. There is talk of an escalating global conflict and that spells bad news for the economy, particularly regarding a new energy crisis.
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I’d have to say what at first was looking a little more brighter than 2023, rates coming down an estimated three quarters of a point current world events are now taking a very dark turn which could very easily now spiral out of control, higher energy, supply chain cost etc etc and let’s not forget up and coming UK and US elections which are going to be very messy to say the least …….. so I’d recommend battening down the hatches and preparing for the worst.
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Is there really going to be that much difference? Maybe you buy less stuff, have fewer food deliveries, save on holidays and days out, maybe get a smaller car. Most people will just adjust their lifestyle and just carry on.
We did a financial breakdown and can see all sorts of savings we can make over the year. Right now we now both work in the same room so only have the heating on in that room and log burner in the evening heats the lounge. We now walk to the shops and no longer have takeaway at the weekends.
These an other changes save us nearly £2000/year
The economic forecast for the UK depends much on what we do as individuals. If people are less demanding and act sensibly we will be OK. And a lot better off than many other counties.
We did a financial breakdown and can see all sorts of savings we can make over the year. Right now we now both work in the same room so only have the heating on in that room and log burner in the evening heats the lounge. We now walk to the shops and no longer have takeaway at the weekends.
These an other changes save us nearly £2000/year
The economic forecast for the UK depends much on what we do as individuals. If people are less demanding and act sensibly we will be OK. And a lot better off than many other counties.
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Maybe a slightly different take on the 'economic" prospects for 2024. What about how the the lack of a proper working infrastructure in the UK the rail system and other public transport networks which just don't seem to function properly, the lack of any forward thinking in protecting this countries energy resources, importing liquid gas because we have no storage. A NHS system on its knees, you can't get a dentist and very lucky if you can just ring up your doctor and get through. Potential workers unable to get proper medical care thus being unable to work, yet more strain on the tax payers
All these things add up to (in my book) a broken Britain where success government has completely let the public down and more so then ever we are going to be paying the price of this. Alluded to in my other post the issues some we can avoid perhaps but others we are getting ever drawn into as the Middle East becomes ever more unstable. How ready as country are we too facing these challenges, I sit here this weekend looking out at two aircraft carriers sitting in dock which can't leave as their escort destroyers have not got enough crew to man them, more forward thinking by our government.
We have the highest taxes seen in years and I fear, yes you might be able to cut back here and there, and some may ride the storm thats coming but for a huge majority I believe they are going to wonder what the hell has hit them.
Let's be honest we can't even run a Post Office.
All these things add up to (in my book) a broken Britain where success government has completely let the public down and more so then ever we are going to be paying the price of this. Alluded to in my other post the issues some we can avoid perhaps but others we are getting ever drawn into as the Middle East becomes ever more unstable. How ready as country are we too facing these challenges, I sit here this weekend looking out at two aircraft carriers sitting in dock which can't leave as their escort destroyers have not got enough crew to man them, more forward thinking by our government.
We have the highest taxes seen in years and I fear, yes you might be able to cut back here and there, and some may ride the storm thats coming but for a huge majority I believe they are going to wonder what the hell has hit them.
Let's be honest we can't even run a Post Office.
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UK governments can always do that. I loved the irony of him standing in a heavily bombed area of Ukraine saying that when international law is broken, the UK and their partners have to act. Well, they certainly will when there's money at stake, just not lives.
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The press has a tendency to go towards negativity, human mainstream society is pessimistic at best.
Every crisis has winners, where do you want to stand?
If you wish to be on the winning side,you need to act, not react.
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No different to any year since the late 90s really, more optimistic for my own business than I am on the country's prospects as a whole. We need to simply cannibilise more of our competition, its been the only game in town for 30 years so not sure why this year would be any diffrerent. When there is no meaningful inflation adjused growth in an economy, you have to rob someone elses' business to grow...there is no all boats being lifted in an expanding economy for everyone...
We're on the fast road to Poland/Mexico GDP per capita numbers and a population that is not used to the living standards associated with those levels of productivity...there is a massive shock coming at some point down the line that whatever abysmal services we have now, they are going to get worse year on year, taxing more (on top of record post-war tax rates) on a choked private sector will not resolve this. Unless there is a plan for growth that gets us out this death trap of higher taxes on the same private sector activity, and I've seen none to date from Labour (our new government in waiting) or from the Tories (laughable after 13 years), then strap in for the ride.
My partner is South African/Italian so I know indirectly from both of those countries what it feels like when everything gets just a little worse every year, everyone knows it, is in fact resigned to it, but noone has the plan or the balls to tackle it. So on it goes. I see Britain as the Italy from 1990, we just joined the party a bit late, absolutely zero growth for decades, an aging workforce and an expanding welfare state taking more and more of the pie every year.
We're on the fast road to Poland/Mexico GDP per capita numbers and a population that is not used to the living standards associated with those levels of productivity...there is a massive shock coming at some point down the line that whatever abysmal services we have now, they are going to get worse year on year, taxing more (on top of record post-war tax rates) on a choked private sector will not resolve this. Unless there is a plan for growth that gets us out this death trap of higher taxes on the same private sector activity, and I've seen none to date from Labour (our new government in waiting) or from the Tories (laughable after 13 years), then strap in for the ride.
My partner is South African/Italian so I know indirectly from both of those countries what it feels like when everything gets just a little worse every year, everyone knows it, is in fact resigned to it, but noone has the plan or the balls to tackle it. So on it goes. I see Britain as the Italy from 1990, we just joined the party a bit late, absolutely zero growth for decades, an aging workforce and an expanding welfare state taking more and more of the pie every year.
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No, its the government taking more and more from people like me, SME owners (corp tax up, rates up, divi allowances non-existent, tax bands frozen...) and delivering less and less services for it in the public sector with said increases, have you read the recent productivity numbers from the public sector? Its atrocious and its getting very tiring nobody has the cajones to tackle this issue. We cannot pull more deadweight from private industry. OBR's own findings..."Between 1997 and 2022, spending on public services went up by 88.5pc. But output only increased by 87.7pc. Each pound was spent a little less efficiently, so productivity fell by 0.4pc over the decades".
Heads need to roll. Just 5% efficiency is worth £20bn to the taxpayer. Too many vested interests that have no interest in working more efficiently. In private business you'd be bust with this performance.
And we're 66% more efficient in the private sector over that time. How anyone can defend an increase of 88.5% in funding in 25 years and with all the technology since the late 90s not a percent productivity gain returned to the taxpayer. Don't you work in the public sector? I guess we have different ideas of what the problems are...
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No, I run my own business. I did work in the public sector briefly, immediately before I retired. A large part of the increased costs is the number of agency staff being employed because civil service jobs are not attractive and are difficult to recruit to. Plus the ever changing government priorities aff to costs. But you cannot argue that over the last tears the top 1% has increased their own wealth hugely.
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Doesn't sound too bad to me. Probably not even statistically significant.
It's better that the constant "we can cut the budget and increase productivity through efficiency savings" that is regularly trumpeted. There are no more efficiency savings, and haven't been for a long time. What they usually mean is they will farm it out to the private sector who will pay their employees less, deliver less and provide a poorer service.
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That is a pretty astonishing comment on a business forum, doesn't sound too bad? Is that a mistype? No productivity gain in 25 years is acceptable?... Am I reading your post correctly? We're running dramatically more efficiently than we were in the late 90s, just on admin alone (which applies just as well to the public sector), I now have AI already employed working on our back office systems, prior we'd have had double the office staff we do now in accounts/order handling etc., handling the same amount of volume (we're remarkably consistent in volume terms). I've not thought about it much but I'd quite confidently say we've doubled efficiency in that period (so 100%) and had we not done so we'd be out of business... doing the same with half the resource. Why does the public sector not have to work within the same confines as the rest of us? Such a lack of regard for taxpayer's money on a business forum is very perplexing to me at least.
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The first quarter or 2023 looked really bright for my business. By the end of the second quarter I had to cut costs to the bone, 3rd quarter was up and down but the 4th quarter was pretty good.
Seems like 2024 could be similar, first quarter is looking pretty. No doubt some negative press with wars and costs of living or whatever new tagline they come up with freaks people out again till end of the year. I suppose with a general election coming up maybe the government won’t want to rock the boat to much.
Fixed costs I managed to get under control from greedy landlords and utilities companies by moving out to a cheaper unit. Variable costs such as fuel seem to be stabilising. I suppose you have to remain positive but realistic at the same time. Anyone running a small business since 2019 until now needs an award. You’re constantly on your toes and cautious. Hopefully we get some more settled times.
Staff costs aren’t balancing out either. There is a big dispersion between what a client is willing to pay for staff and what staff are willing to work for. This is something that’s still in limbo with a lot of honest and open chats with both staff and clients. In my industry the staff are vocational skilled techs but they think that they are worth more that what a vocational skill set is worth to the market. I don’t blame them as prices for living last year were out of control. But now they are just talking themselves out of work. There is always someone cheaper and generally younger willing to swipe up the shifts.
Let’s just hope for no WW3. That part is not looking pretty and if anything close to a WW happens then it’s game over.
Seems like 2024 could be similar, first quarter is looking pretty. No doubt some negative press with wars and costs of living or whatever new tagline they come up with freaks people out again till end of the year. I suppose with a general election coming up maybe the government won’t want to rock the boat to much.
Fixed costs I managed to get under control from greedy landlords and utilities companies by moving out to a cheaper unit. Variable costs such as fuel seem to be stabilising. I suppose you have to remain positive but realistic at the same time. Anyone running a small business since 2019 until now needs an award. You’re constantly on your toes and cautious. Hopefully we get some more settled times.
Staff costs aren’t balancing out either. There is a big dispersion between what a client is willing to pay for staff and what staff are willing to work for. This is something that’s still in limbo with a lot of honest and open chats with both staff and clients. In my industry the staff are vocational skilled techs but they think that they are worth more that what a vocational skill set is worth to the market. I don’t blame them as prices for living last year were out of control. But now they are just talking themselves out of work. There is always someone cheaper and generally younger willing to swipe up the shifts.
Let’s just hope for no WW3. That part is not looking pretty and if anything close to a WW happens then it’s game over.
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Need to find some ‘value add’ that distinguishes your staff from others available on the market, in order to justify a premium price (if not premium, just up a few %)
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We're off to a flying start too but I don't get excited either, enough experience to know, like yourself, one good quarter can easily turn into a bad one and if the last few years has shown us anything, its to expect the unexpected. I like starting well though as always nice to have that safety cushion for future months being slower, slow starts and playing catch up is a horrible position to be in. It has been disconcerting the sheer volatility of business the last few years.
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