CE Barometer December 2011: Pessimism remains

Confidence in the European construction sector remained negative in December, following a sudden plunge the month before. But in contrast to November's results, the strength of the sentiment was far less pronounced.

Current confidence fell to a negative balance of -9.2%, a figure arrived at by subtracting the percentage of negative responses from positive ones. Although very clearly in negative territory, the strength of feels has moderated from the -24,2% result seen in November

Likewise, on the future outlook, respondents were still negative, but at -3,2%, the result was again far less pronounced than the -24,2% of people who said activity would be lower in a year's time, based on November's results.

Compared to a year ago, results were evenly split between those who said activity was higher and those that said it was lower.

As a result of all of this, the overall Climate stood at -4.1%, a move in the right direction from the result of -15.2% seen in November, but still in negative territory.

Compared to November's starkly negative results, December's survey has seen sentiment moderate a little, and to a large extent return to the indecisive, directionless territory it was in for most of the late summer and autumn.

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The survey, which takes just a one minute to complete, is open to all construction professionals working in Europe. The CE Barometer survey is open from the 1st to the 15^th of each month on our website. Full information can be found at www.cebarometer.eu