Young Presidents' Optimism Rebounds

Young business leaders' optimism picked up toward the end of 2011.

Image: iStockphoto

Fresh off the best unemployment numbers in months, the members of the Young Presidents Organization are delivering more good news to President Barack Obama.

The organization for executives kicked off February of this election year by releasing a survey this morning that shows they’re more optimistic about the state of the economy and more likely to hire in the coming months.

The YPO Global Pulse Index for young executives in the United States jumped in the fourth quarter of 2011, rising 4.5 points to 62.2. The hiring index rose 59.8, the highest rating for that index since YPO began measuring it in July 2009.

An index reading above 50 indicates positive sentiment.

Forty-three percent of the executives surveyed said the economy had improved in the previous four months. As importantly, more than half, 51 percent, said they expected the economy to get better in the next six months. That’s a major jump from the 30 percent who expected economic improvement in the previous quarter.

“The rising optimism seen in the latest YPO survey is consistent with recent economic reports indicating that the U.S. economy has finally begun to crank out a respectable number of new jobs,” Stephen Slifer, chief economist at NumberNomics, said in a release.

If those expectations hold true, it would bode well for the president in this election year, since he’s running against a dismal economy almost as hard as he is the slate of Republican candidates vying for the GOP nomination.