The nation’s engineering firm representatives are bullish about the direction of the industry and the overall economy, according to the first quarter 2015 (Q1/15) ACEC Engineering Business Index.
The composite EBI score of 65.3 is solidly positive. The EBI is a diffusion index that charts the health of the engineering industry by consolidating senior leadership responses on market and firm performance into a single number. Any number over 50 indicates an optimistic outlook. More than 325 firms responded to the quarterly EBI survey, which was conducted from March 30 to April 15.
More than nine out of 10 respondents expect the market to improve or stay the same over the coming 12 months, and the percentage expecting profitability to increase during the next six months jumped to 44.3 percent from 36.0 percent in the fourth quarter 2014 (Q4/14) survey.
One area of concern was backlog, with the percentage of firms reporting backlog growth falling from 66.8 percent in the Q4/14 survey to 56 percent in the Q1/15 survey.
Firm leader responses also pointed to a slowing in M&A activity.
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