The businessinsider.com.pl website said the latest statistics showed “Poles have succumbed to corona-depression, with consumer confidence at its worst in 16 years.”
The website added that “pessimism among the Polish public has hit rock bottom,” with “fewer and fewer people seeing light at the end of the tunnel.”
The latest batch of data from the state-run statistics agency indicates that Poles expect their financial situation to change for the worse coupled with a dramatic rise in unemployment, businessinsider.com.pl also said.
Poland’s Central Statistical Office reported on Thursday that consumer sentiment in the country deteriorated significantly in April compared with the previous month.
It added that its Current Consumer Confidence Index, which describes current trends in personal consumption, slid into negative territory of “minus 36.4” points, down by 37.7 points from March.
All the components of the indicator were clearly lower than a month earlier, the office also said, with a significant deterioration in how Polish consumers evaluate their financial condition as well as the prospects of the economy as a whole.
Compared with April last year, the Current Consumer Confidence Index dropped by 43.6 points, the statistical office said.
Meanwhile, the so-called Leading Consumer Confidence Index, which provides an insight into expected trends in personal consumption in the coming months, plummeted by 45.4 points in April from March, to “minus 47.7” points, the Central Statistical Office reported.
It added that all the components of that indicator declined significantly, including how consumers evaluate the future level of unemployment and the future financial situation of their own households and the economy as a whole.
The Leading Consumer Confidence Index was 51.2 points lower in April than in the same month of 2019, the office reported.
Both consumer confidence indicators take values from -100 to +100. A positive value means that optimistic attitudes prevail among consumers, while a negative value indicates a prevalence of pessimistic views.
(gs/pk)
Source: businessinsider.com.pl, PAP, stat.gov.pl