Johannesburg - The Nielsen Consumer Confidence Index declined 10 points to 77 in the fourth quarter of last year, offsetting the gains made in the previous quarter.Nielsen South Africa’s managing director, Bryan Sun, said the roller-coaster consumer sentiment continued as respondents’ outlook deteriorated following the short-lived increase in the third quarter.
Sun said: “An impending credit-rating review was a major source of apprehension during the fourth quarter, and lower-than-expected [gross domestic product] growth and rising food prices also were concerns. In addition, South Africans are increasingly anxious about ongoing disruption and uncertainty in the tertiary education crisis.”
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South Africa’s economy contracted by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. Nielsen said it had conducted a trend analysis of certain key sets since 2005 in order to provide a deeper understanding of the key shifts within the index.
It said a key finding was that job prospects were at their lowest level since that year. “Proof of this is that in response to the question ‘What do you think job prospects will be in South Africa in the next 12 months?’, the latest results saw only 18 percent of respondents saying excellent or good, as compared to 31 percent in the previous quarter and 50 percent in Q1 2005.”
Nielsen said the data revealed enormous shifts in what South Africans worried about.