Those feeling that the world economy will improve over the next two quarters (36%) are now outnumbered by those who think it will decline (39%). When it comes to local economic confidence, the mood is particularly gloomy in the UK (only 30% think things will improve and 42% anticipate decline), a potential result of stubborn inflation, high interest rates, a weak pound, ongoing concerns about low investment and productivity, and continuing post-Brexit trade problems.

The picture is rosier in the Americas where, despite fears about the possibility of looming recession in the US, confidence that the local economic outlook will improve over the next six months is solid at 45%, 10 points higher than the global average. Likely factors include improved US inflation data (which reached a low of 3% in June, substantially down from 6.4% in January and a high of 9.1% in 2022) and buoyant domestic consumer spending.

When focusing on specific industries, our survey finds more optimism among those in the energy, manufacturing and engineering (EME) sectors (where 41% expected their sector outlook to improve over the next six months), possibly a reflection of the early summer stabilisation of gas prices.

A regional analysis of the EME sectors shows that those in CEMEA are most sanguine, while many in APAC do not expect conditions to improve. Respondents in the retail, travel and leisure sector are the second-most bullish (39%), with likely factors including the ongoing post-pandemic tourism boom, with traditional big hitters such as France returning particularly positive numbers for the year.

The APAC tech sector is particularly gloomy, with only half of respondents sure of their ability to navigate the prevailing conditions, possibly driven in part by increased White House hawkishness regarding Chinese tech.

In the UK, the mood is slightly more upbeat, with 76% of respondents expressing confidence in their company’s immediate future. In the retail, travel and leisure sectors this figure is an impressive 93%, a reflection, perhaps, of the fact that British consumer spending has remained buoyant despite higher prices – a product of wage rises and higher-than-average savings held over from the pandemic.

In the US and Americas, confidence is highest, with a more robust outlook shared across all sectors. Despite high gasoline prices and lingering inflation, might US businesses be benefiting from a resilience developed during the pandemic and the huge stimulus of the Inflation Reduction Act?

Recruitment challenges are also a product of a post-pandemic shift in worker expectations, with employees valuing flexible hours and the opportunity to work from home. Hybrid working has also seen businesses aiming to reduce spending on office space – part of a wider desire to cut costs, which was a priority for more than a third of respondents. In the UK, the need to reduce costs (39%) eclipsed recruitment (37%) to become the top priority over the past year, driven in no small part by the country’s ongoing struggle with inflation, which remained stubbornly high at 6.7% in August, compared with the EU average of 5.9%.

There are interesting variations across sectors, with those working in government, health and NGOs particularly aware of the need to compete for talent against capital-rich businesses in an era of fast-moving wage increases. Unsurprisingly, those working in tech put the highest premium on increasing innovation (35% had it as a priority), knowing that they have to keep pace with a growing number of challenger start-ups, and that early adoption of machine learning is vital in the rapidly evolving sector.

In the tech sector, trust was the number one priority, up from 45% in Q1 to 57% in Q3, a reflection perhaps of a growing sense that the sector needs to be more tightly regulated with ongoing misinformation issues at Elon Musk’s X and a sense of regret that some of the sector’s big mergers weren’t more rigorously

Across the board there was also a noted swing towards focusing on the importance of experienced management and leadership, possibly a product of recent high-profile scandals involving businesses led by young and inexperienced CEOs, among them FTX and WeWork.

On the question of artificial intelligence, respondents are, perhaps surprisingly, optimistic, with 63% either strongly or slightly agreeing with the statement that the implementation of AI represents more of an opportunity than a threat. Enthusiasm is particularly high in APAC (73%), but less so in the Americas (59%) and the UK (60%), reflecting wider patterns of wariness in high-income countries.

In terms of anticipated take-up, big companies (1,000+ employees) lead the way: 55% of those in this segment believe their company will invest more in incorporating AI over the next five years, considerably more than their peers at firms with fewer than 50 employees (35%).

But there are concerns. Fears that the technology could facilitate the spread of misinformation are held across the board, and are particularly acute in the Americas (76%), a reflection possibly of the febrile political and media landscape in the US. And, globally, nearly one in five (18%) think that the majority of their colleagues’ jobs are likely to become obsolete because of AI in less than a decade. Predictably, there is considerable variation across the sectors in this regard: those in banking and financial services (21%) and energy, manufacturing and engineering (22%) are more concerned about obsolescence than those who work in retail, travel and leisure (11%).