PwC’s CEO Survey shares insights from 1,300+ CEOs around the world, revealing what worries them for the year ahead.
Following a surge in CEO optimism about the economic look last year, their current outlook paints a different story.
Pessimism has overshadowed optimism regarding global growth prospects in the latest PwC Annual Global CEO Survey.
The index has found that nearly 30% of CEOs project a decline in global economic growth in 2019, up from a mere 5% last year, spelling caution regarding their vision on global growth.
Which are the majors threats they see?
Over-regulation is the top worry for CEOs around the world in 2019.
PwC’s 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey revealed 35% of world business leaders are ‘extremely concerned’ about the growth of over-regulation (35%) and policy uncertainty (35%).
Availability of key skills (34%), trade conflicts (31%), cyber threats (30%), geopolitical uncertainty (30%), protectionism (30%), populism (28%), speed of technological change (28%), and exchange rate volatility (26%) complete the top ten threats to business growth that global CEOs are ‘extremely concerned’ about in 2019.
In North America, 38% of CEO respondents said they were extremely concerned about protectionism in particular, making it the third most common response in the region behind trade conflicts (44%) and cyber threats (45%).
Click to see what were the worries CEOs had in 2018.
- Question: How concerned are you, if at all, about each of these potential economic, policy, social, environmental, and business threats to your organisation’s growth prospects? (showing only ‘extremely concerned’)
