Nearly two-thirds -- 65% -- of large U.S. consumer products companies recently surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) consider escalating energy prices to be a barrier to their future growth.
What's more, the impact of higher energy prices is already evident in hiring, gross margins and new investments. A net 19% of companies that PwC describes as "energy vulnerable" expect to be adding to their workforces during the next 12 months, less than half the percentage for companies not considered vulnerable to energy prices. Margins are decreasing for energy-vulnerable consumer companies and increasing among those that are not. And the energy-vulnerable companies are lagging behind their non-vulnerable peers by eight percentage points in making major new investments.
Sources: IndustryWeek staff, Agence France-Presse
