Nonprofit research group the Conference Board released its "Measure of CEO Confidence" report for the third quarter of the year, revealing that 81 percent of CEOs who were surveyed are expecting "a brief and shallow recession, with limited global spillover."
Only 7 percent of respondents said they do not expect a recession and 12 percent expect a deep recession.
A majority of respondents said demand has been stable or grown over the past three months and that they intend to hire more staff and raise wages for employees, despite the anticipation of a recession.
"Throughout the survey, we found signs CEOs are preparing for weakening economic conditions ahead," Roger Ferguson Jr., vice chair of the Business Council and trustee of the Conference Board, said in the report. "In Q3, 50% of CEOs expect to grow their workforce over the next 12 months, down from 63% in Q2."
Mr. Ferguson continued that 82 percent of CEOs surveyed expect capital growth or stabilization over the next year, down from 93 percent in the second quarter of 2022. He added that 44 percent of CEOs surveyed are having trouble finding qualified new hires that can work across the organization as opposed to one position, down from 61 percent in the second quarter.
Only 6 percent of CEOs said economic conditions were better than six months ago, compared to 14 percent in the second quarter. Seventy-seven percent said economic conditions were worse.
Up from the second quarter, 73 percent of CEOs expect economic conditions to worsen in the next six months.
Forty-eight percent of respondents said conditions in their industry worsened this quarter.