Javier TahiriSEGUIRMADRID Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *

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The damage that the crisis of the coronavirus has inflicted on the economy will be maintained next year. Believe so, at least, 44% of Spanish employers who expected to reduce their business in the next twelve months, according to the first wave of the International Business report 2020, conducted by professional services firm Grant Thornton. This percentage is higher among the Spanish companies than in their european peers, where a 42″ is expected to reduce sales and a 39% believe that cut benefits .

As the firm done every six months this survey between 5,000 executives from 35 countries around the world –of which 400 are of Spanish companies between 50 and 500 employees, it can compare certain variables with the environment that it had before the outbreak of the pandemic. For example, the optimism of the Spanish entrepreneurs falls by half: if in December of 2019 declared themselves to be optimistic 40% of the respondents now that percentage shrinks to 24% . Yes, the percentage that is declared pessimism is lower when collected in the debt crisis of the Eurozone, when in the first quarter of 2011 came to be in the 8%.

that As it may, yes there is a fragmentation of optimism as serious has been the crisis of the coronavirus: the Spanish businessmen are less optimistic that the germans and the british (with a 31% optimistic), Greek (37%) and against the average of 29% of the EU, only the Italian are less positive (23%).

“The data obtained reveal that in the previous crisis, the entrepreneurs themselves predicted a deterioration deep and structural. However, on this occasion it seems that yes, trust in a more rapid recovery of the economy. The macroeconomic data are all ways worrying, because the Bank of Spain has just placed the drop in GDP this year in 15.1%, and the unemployment rate at 23.6% in the worst scenario of the three that provides for, so that will have to be attentive to the development of the pandemic in the second half of the year”, considers the president of Grant Thornton, Alejandro Martínez Borrell.

Less employment

In this way, 37% of employers believe that it will reduce employment in the next twelve months (compared to 33% in the EU, or 32% of responses in all the world that collects Grant Thornton). The economic uncertainty is much greater in our country, where three of every four entrepreneurs believe that this is going to hurt their companies, compared with 59% in Europe and 66% worldwide.

Far less likely is to increase the template. If by the end of 2019 37% of Spanish firms planned to increase its staff, now that percentage is has plummeted to 23% . Despite this, the percentage improvement that he had in 2011.

“The sharp drop in sectors, such as tourism , which represents 12% of GDP, and the fear that its recovery is delayed with respect to the rest of the economy and affects the domestic consumption explains the higher levels of economic uncertainty in comparison to the european average and to the countries of our environment,” said Carlos Fernández, consultant and expert economic of Grant Thornton.

Wage floor

wages did not escape this deterioration in expectations in the labour market. If one out of every five executives believed that it would increase the wages of their employees above inflation, now this percentage is reduced from 21% to 16% in just six months. Keep in mind that this survey has been conducted among medium-sized and large companies. Spain, in this sense, is equated to intent media in the rest of countries analysed, which also stood at 16%, while at european level the figure drops slightly to 12%.