By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Business leaders were significantly less optimistic in the second quarter than they were at the start of the year. Conference Board measure of CEO confidence in collaboration with the Business Council fell by 26 points in the second quarter of 2025 to 34. That is the lowest level since Q4 of 2022 with 83% of CEOs saying they expect a recession in the next 12 to 18 months. Joining us now on this, Mike Archbold, the Conference Board program director and former GNC CEO Paul Gruenwald, still with us as well. Mike, it’s great to have you here. Uh, talk to me about how much of this collapse is tariff related.
01:18 Mike Archbold
So, first thanks for having me Madison. And and it’s it’s interesting, um, because this survey took place basically the week before and the week after May 12th, which was the date that China and the US kind of created a a ceasefire on trade and tariffs. And while the responses from the CEOs were less pessimistic in the week following, they remain pessimistic. Um, and not only were they pessimistic, the the the survey actually inquires about CEOs confidence, uh, or view of the economy now versus six months ago and also six months from now versus now. And both of those, uh, indices registered as pessimistic. So, so there seems to be a lot of other things in addition to tariffs. Tariffs is certainly a a factor here, but there seem to be a number of things on CEOs minds.
02:55 Speaker A
So what are those other factors on CEOs minds, especially given the fact that we we mentioned in the intro CEOs do foresee a more high chance of an incoming recession, but you also know that they don’t see changes in their workforces coming up. So what are those headwinds that they think that they can stomach without having to lay people off?
03:30 Mike Archbold
So, it’s it’s a great question and and it’s interesting because the the the numbers that we saw in terms of the the CEO perspective is similar to what we saw back in 2020 into 202, 203 when there was a lot of consideration for recession. Now, we did avoid that recession, uh, in no small part due to the fact that companies did not do layoffs. Uh, and it it appears from what the the CEOs are saying, they’re gonna be in a similar situation because they’re they’re actually reporting that they’re anticipating no significant change in their workforce, but by contrast, uh, the number of CEOs who are reporting that they expect to reduce their capital spending actually doubled versus the previous reading.
05:07 Speaker A
Yeah, and that’s certainly an important economic indicator as well. Mike, my guest host, Paul Gruenwald has a question for you as well.
05:20 Paul Gruenwald
Yeah, hey Mike. My question’s about this wedge we’re seeing between the soft data and the hard data. So a lot of the confidence indicators, including your own, are, you know, pointing south and have been for a while, but the the big macro indicators consumption, uh, unemployment are kind of hanging in there. So what’s your read on that? Is that a lag or is there some new noise in the data or some of the linkages broken down? I’d love to get your your take on that.
06:02 Mike Archbold
It’s great question, Paul, and and some of the linkages certainly are shifting, right? Because, um, it it used to be these were were great, um, you know, predictive analytics, predictive numbers for for the economy. And what we’ve, what we’ve seen is that, uh, you know, CEOs are not acting the same as they have in the past. They’re they’re they’re skills banking, they’re hoarding, uh, you know, labor. They’re doing these things to make sure that they’re well positioned. Even if there is a recession, coming out of that recession, that they’d be well positioned. But what’s happening because of that is the unemployment’s not going down. So it’s it’s changing the interaction of all of these factors.