According to the research, out of 750 respondents only 15% felt prospects for the economy are brighter than three months ago, while 56% are less optimistic and 29% believe that the health of the economy is unchanged.
The CISI ran a survey in the summer looking at confidence in the economy. At the time, 26% of IFAs were more optimistic, 35% were downbeat about the UK’s chances of recovery and 39% felt the economy was neither moving backwards or forwards.
One contributor to the latest survey said: “Steeply rising inflation, no pay rises and job losses could push us towards civil unrest. People will actually struggle to feed themselves.”
Others warned that the UK would suffer badly as a result of European and US debt woes.
One IFA said: “The debt crisis in European countries will eventually hit us hard – countries will collapse.
“It will be a very long road back to economic health, perhaps 15 years or so.”
However, another IFA said: “The next three months need to be passed. After that we will see surprise gains until next Christmas.”
