Irish Consumer confidence drop the largest in twenty four year history
A survey led by KBC reveals that Irish sentiment fall reflects reality of weaker current conditions as well as risk of poorer prospects.
Irish consumer sentiment showed the sharpest monthly decline in the twenty four year history of the survey in April reflecting a dramatic change both in Irish economic conditions and household financial circumstances as a result of Covid-19 and the associated health related shutdown of substantial elements of business and social activity.
The KBC Bank Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 42.6 in April from 77.3 in March. While the April reading is still marginally above the low point of the index (39.6) recorded in July 2008, the monthly change in April is about two and a half times as large as the next largest monthly drop.
The fall in Irish consumer confidence in the month of April alone is equivalent to about half the decline seen in sentiment through the period when the Irish economy moved from boom to bust. Judged in terms of typical monthly fluctuations in the sentiment index, the scale of change recorded between March and April might be expected with a frequency of around every couple of hundred years. As such, the April reading suggests a sea-change in Irish consumers’ thinking about their economic circumstances in response to the Coronavirus.
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