The KPMG 2022 CEO Outlook, which asked more than 1,300 CEOs at the world’s largest businesses about their strategies and outlook, reveals that 58 percent of leaders expect a recession to be mild and short. Fourteen percent of senior executives identify a recession among the most pressing concerns today — up slightly from early 2022 (9 percent), while pandemic fatigue tops the list (15 percent).

Over the next year, more than 8 out of 10 (86 percent) global CEOs anticipate a recession to hit, with 71 percent predicting it will impact company earnings by up to 10 percent. A strong majority of senior executives believe that a recession will disrupt anticipated growth (73 percent). However, three-quarters (76 percent) have already taken precautionary steps ahead of a looming recession.

Despite those concerns, senior executives also feel markedly more confident about the resilience of the economy over the next 6 months (73 percent) than they did in February (60 percent), when KPMG surveyed 500 CEOs for its CEO Outlook Pulse survey. Further, 71 percent of leaders are confident about the global economy's growth prospects over the next 3 years (up from 60 percent in early 2022) and nearly 9 in 10 (85 percent) are confident about their organization’s growth over the next 3 years.

“Once-in-a-generation issues — a global pandemic, war, inflationary pressures and financial difficulties — have come in short succession and taken a toll on the optimism of global CEOs. While it’s unsurprising the economic climate is now a top concern for business leaders, it’s encouraging to see reasonable levels of confidence among executives in their own companies and their longer-term prospects for growth. This sentiment, to a certain degree, matches the forecasts of Latvian macroeconomic experts who expect an economic downturn at the end of 2022 and during the first six months of 2023, with the return to growth in 2024," says Armine Movsisjana, Managing Partner of KPMG in Latvia.

To view additional information about the survey please visit KPMG 2022 CEO Outlook - KPMG Global (home.kpmg)

The 8^th edition of KPMG CEO Outlook, conducted with 1,325 CEOs between 12 July and August 24, 2022, provides unique insight into the mindset, strategies and planning tactics of CEOs not only comparable to pre-pandemic to today, but also from KPMG’s CEO Pulse Survey conducted between 12 January and 9 February, 2022, with 500 CEOs before the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine.

All respondents have annual revenues over US$500M and a third of the companies surveyed have more than US$10B in annual revenue. The survey included leaders from 11 key markets (Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK and US) and 11 key industry sectors (asset management, automotive, banking, consumer and retail, energy, infrastructure, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, technology, and telecommunications).

NOTE: some figures may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.