Poland: Consumer Sentiment Barometer rose 3.3 pts m/m to -1.3 pts in November

The GfK - An NIQ Company's Consumer Sentiment Barometer, a synthetic indicator illustrating Poles' current sentiment on consumer attitudes, was -1.3 in November 2023, an increase of 3.3 points m/m, according to the GfK - An NIQ Company's Consumer Sentiment Barometer.

The barometer is now just a few points away from a positive result; the last time such a result, or 1.1 in the positive, was recorded in March 2020. - At that time, the survey was carried out at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The barometer's negative result is strongly influenced by the public's continuing concerns about potential price increases or unemployment. As many as 82% of respondents expect higher amounts on receipts, while 37.5% are worried about more problems in the labour market, it was reported.

"If only the averaged result were taken into account, we could say that Poles are approaching the end of the year in good moods. And certainly in much better ones than at the beginning of it. Unfortunately, the indicator close to zero consists of a strong polarisation, i.e. a double-digit positive result among young people (23-29 years old) and a strong, eight-point negative result in the middle age group (40-49) and among the elderly (60 years old and over). Notwithstanding the large differences, the Polish market, and especially retailers, are certainly looking at the consumer sentiment barometer with great satisfaction. In the face of war, economic uncertainty and galloping record inflation, just a few months ago everyone would have taken such statistics 'blindly'," said head of market intelligence at GfK - An NIQ Company Artur Noga-Bogomilski.

In November 2023, the key components of the Consumer Sentiment Barometer were as follows:

* there was an improvement in households' assessment of their financial situation in the last 12 months - the component increased by 7.1 percentage points to -2.8;

* there has been an improvement in the assessment of the financial situation of households in the next 12 months - the component increased by 3.4 percentage points to -1.8;

* there has been an improvement in the country's economic situation in the last 12 months - the component increased by 10.3 percentage points to -23.8;

* there has been an improvement in the country's economic situation in the next 12 months - the component increased by 4.9 percentage points to -14.1;

* there was an improvement in the cost of living compared to 12 months earlier - the component increased by 0.7 percentage points to 47.3, it said.

A slight increase in consumer attitudes can also be seen in the European Union, where the average score increased by 1.2 from the previous month to -17.5. Despite the increases in both indicators, the disparity in consumer sentiment widened, it was also stated.

The survey was conducted from 6 to 11 November 2023 as part of a multi-subject omnibus e-Bus survey using the CAWI method (computer-assisted interviews with respondents using a questionnaire placed on the internet) on a quantitative, subject-representative, nationwide sample of n=1000 people. The structure of the respondents was selected with a distribution of selected socio-demographic parameters reflecting the distribution of these characteristics in the general population.

The barometer can take values from -100 to +100 and is the balance between positive and negative opinions. A positive barometer value indicates that, in a given survey wave, the number of optimistic consumers outnumbers the number of pessimistic consumers. A negative barometer value indicates the reversal of this proportion.

Source: GfK and ISBnews