In the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) for the second quarter of 2022, respondents revised their inflation expectations for 2022 and 2023 upward, to 6.0% and 2.4% respectively. Expectations for 2024 were unrevised at 1.9%. Regarding the near-term outlook, respondents viewed high inflation as being primarily determined by “cost-push” rather than “demand-pull” factors, and considered that the conflict in Ukraine had re-ignited and amplified price pressures that had started to show signs of peaking. Longer-term inflation expectations for 2026 stood at 2.1%, revised up from 2.0% in the previous survey.
Regarding GDP growth, SPF respondents’ expectations were revised down for 2022 and 2023 and slightly up for 2024, but remained for all years above longer-term growth expectations which edged down marginally to 1.4%. The profile of expected quarter-on-quarter growth in 2022 was revised down in particular for the second quarter (from 1.0% to 0.5%) but while about 25% of respondents who provided a forecast quarterly growth profile saw at least one quarter of negative growth in 2022, only 4% forecasted a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of negative growth).
Notwithstanding the downward revision to expected GDP growth, unemployment rate expectations were revised down further, by between 0.1 and 0.3 percentage points for all horizons. Respondents expect the unemployment rate to decline from 6.9% in 2022 to 6.6% by 2026. Longer-term unemployment expectations are at their lowest level for 15 years.