@Risk

More than one-third (38%) of manufacturing CFOs and senior comptrollers surveyed by Grant Thornton LLP do not expect to see the U.S. economy coming out of the current recession until the second half of 2010.

Interestingly, nearly 27% expect the recession to end sooner, during the first half of 2010, and about 15% are even more bullish, predicting the recession will end by the end of 2009.

But, another one-fifth (20%) of CFOs don’t expect to see a turnaround until 2011 or beyond. All told then, about 58% of the CFOs surveyed don’t see the recession ending until the second half of 2010, or beyond.

These new survey results represent Grant Thornton’s recent poll of 195 manufacturing CFOs and senior comptrollers from companies across the country with revenues from less than $100 million to $5 billion.

Here are a few additional key findings:

• 25% of CFOs expect to raise prices during the next six months, while nearly 63% expect to keep prices at current levels. (In an earlier study this March, Grant Thornton found that only 12.6% expected to raise prices during the next six months.)

• When asked about their major concerns, the CFO in the survey cited: the impact of employee benefits (73%), raw materials (63%), and energy costs (32%). (In the survey from earlier this year, 47% said energy costs were a major concern.)

• Only 22% expect to reduce headcount over the next six months –that’s down 25% from earlier this year.

• One-third of survey respondents said they are less worried than they were a year ago about their company’s ability to stay in business. 27% are more worried. 40% said their outlook is unchanged.

Once again, this mixed bag of results indicates to me that companies should prepare their supply chains for a modest and protracted economic recovery, as other studies have suggested.