The survey of 802 companies was released by Citibank on Thursday. Of the 802, about half said their business condition was either good or excellent, which is the highest number since the survey started in 2010. However, despite the optimism, three-quarters don’t plan to hire in the next year, and only 17 percent will take on full-time employees.
Aside from optimism about the economy, 51 percent of those surveyed said their business had been hurt by this year’s brutally cold winter, assertions backed up by recent data from the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book Survey. About 7 percent actually said the bad weather improved their business.
Though many of these companies are saying they’re not looking into hiring, there was some good news for the U.S. economy, which saw the unemployment rate fall to 6.3 percent from 6.7 percent, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
