Finance professionals have more confidence in their immediate bosses compared to last year but still have far more confidence in their own work, according to the 2015 Semaphore Confidence Survey.
This year, 97 percent of respondents said they have confidence in themselves and 73 percent said they have confidence in their immediate boss, compared to 94 percent and 63 percent of respondents in those same respective categories for the 2014 survey.
The Semaphore survey measures the “confidence” that industry personnel have in their own firms, their competitors, the government and the industry itself. More than half of the poll’s respondents hail from private equity and venture capital firms, while the remainder is made up of third-party vendors, LPs, operating partners and investment bankers.
The survey also reports that respondents are anticipating higher paychecks this year. A total of 81 percent expect to make more in 2015 than they did in 2014. However, 2014’s survey results indicate that those expectations might not pan out. Last year’s survey reveals that 77 percent of those polled expected to make more in 2014, but only 73 percent reported actually having made more in 2014 this year.
The results show that confidence in the industry in general has risen since last year, with respondents feeling more positively overall towards their own firms, their CEOs and managing partners and their competitors than they did in 2014.
That was not the case, however, for respondents’ views on the economy. A total of 57 percent reported little or no confidence in the US economy, compared to only 17 percent reporting the same last year. The outlook internationally is even more dismal: 72 percent have little or no confidence in the international economy compared to only 27 percent who felt that way in 2014.
