Confidence among SMEs slumps
The Federation of Small Businesses’ (FSB) Voice of Small Business Index has revealed that confidence among SMEs slumped by 9.6 points from a positive 0.3 to -9.3 in the third quarter of 2011.
The results of the survey of over 1,600 SMEs were released shortly after GDP growth for the second quarter of this year was revised downwards to 0.1%.
The FSB has called for a targeted VAT cut and a national insurance contributions (NICs) holiday to counteract the pressures of weak demand and rising costs in the economy.
The results also showed that a net balance of 6% of businesses think that they will make redundancies in the coming three months, which the FSB said pointed to a further
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