​​The Business Tendency Survey is a quarterly survey which provides qualitative information about the Island’s economy in a timely manner.

It covers private sector businesses in Jersey, and asks the chief executive or managing director of sampled businesses for their opinions on the current situation of their business compared to 3 months previously and also for their expectations for the next 3 months.

The March 2011 report shows that:

• The headline all-sector Business Activity Indicator was -6 percentage points (pp), implying that the proportion of businesses in Jersey reporting a decline in business activity compared with three months previously was 6 pp greater than the proportion reporting an increase. More than two-fifths of businesses reported ‘no change’
• there was a considerable difference between the strongly positive Business Activity Indicator of the Finance sector (+26 pp) and the negative tendency recorded by the other sectors of the economy (-18 pp)
• almost three-fifths (58%) of respondents reported that they anticipated “no change” in the basic earnings of employees in 2011; more than a third (36%) anticipated an increase; the remaining 6% anticipated a decrease.
• across all sectors, the mean anticipated change in employees’ earnings for 2011 was +0.2%.