According to the survey in which 175 Privately Held Businesses (PHBs) were interviewed across all industry sectors between November 2010 and May 2011 in Botswana, the country's optimism/pessimism balance has fallen by eight percentage points from +2 percent in 2010 to 54 percent in 2011.
The businesses interviewed ranged from small to medium in size with total employment of between 25 and 299 and factors such as employment, revenue and profit expectations, support of lender and expected challenges in the operating environment were considered. Contributing factors to the pessimism included expected fall in revenues, lack of skilled workers and shortage of orders as a constraint on business growth. On employment, the survey reveals that a balance of 40 percent of businesses in Botswana expects to increase staff levels in 2011, compared with 30 percent in South Africa. The actual employment growth reported by businesses in Botswana for 2010 (27 percent) was much lower than 12 months previously (50 percent).The survey also shows that businesses generally have lower revenue expectations this year, declining slightly to 61 per cent in 2011 from 65 percent in 2010.
