For the first time in the 41-quarter history of a CFO survey, rising labor costs were cited as the top concern of chief financial officers.
The results are from a Duke University/CFO magazine survey of 584 CFOs in the United States. Next-most-concerns: waning consumer demand, followed by rising fuel costs, increasing interest rates, a shortage of skilled labor, and high healthcare costs.
About 60 percent of U.S. companies expect to hire more employees this year, the survey found. About 20 percent expect to reduce employment. Europeans studied were more pessimistic.
