AVIXA Pro-AV Business Index Shows Major Jumps in Employment and Sales

September 2017 numbers in AVIXA Pro-AV Business Index includes near-record levels for year-old metrics that track industry’s overall health.

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AVIXA Pro-AV Business Index Shows Major Jumps in Employment and Sales

AVIXA's Pro-AV Business Index showed strong growth in both employment and sales in September.

Pro AV employment and sales experienced a major boost in September, according to the latest Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association (AVIXA) monthly Pro-AV Business Index.

In the monthly report, the Pro-AV Sales index jumped from 58.4 in August to 66.2 in September, while the Pro-AV Employment Index spiked from 54.6 to 66.0 from August to September. The index measures the health of the industry, based on how many firms either stayed the same or grew at least 5 percent.

Any number above 50 is an indication of a healthy market.

“The economy is doing well and we’re following that trend,” says AVIXA director of market research James Chu.

Now that the index is in its second year after launching in September 2016, it gives AVIXA officials new opportunities to track the trends they find from year to year.

“We can start looking at other data and analyze that to see what’s applicable to members,” he says.

“It allows us to really sharpen the index and lets you know if the spike is normal or an anomaly,” says senior director of market intelligence Sean Wargo.

The major leap forward in employment ended a skid that started in May.

“The overall economy is set to grow at a healthy pace, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has raised its forecast for global growth in 2017 and 2018,” according to the summary in the September Pro-AV Business Index, released in October.

“The Pro-AV Sales Index is on track with this expectation.

“One factor driving business expansion is the progression of AV over IP, a technology solution built for sending audio and video signals through standard networks. AV over IP solutions have been around for many years, but only recently have they proved capable of supporting new and improved technology, such as 4K/UHD. Such advances are now transforming the way systems are connected, as AV over IP is becoming more scalable and requires less hardware,” the summary says.

The employment index is up 11 points from August and 6.5 points from September 2016, “seemingly in contradiction to the known challenges many companies have had in finding qualified help [with U.S. unemployment at 4.2 percent, its lowest level since 2001].

Read next: Business Index Shows Strong Sales, Fewer Job Opportunities

This reflects the cyclical nature of hiring, in which businesses have several projects come online, creating additional positions to support, and then face the realities of finding the right individuals to staff them.”

Wargo says AVIXA “wants to do more of a full spectrum” with the index, meaning they’re seeking more end users to join the 100 or so existing panelists.

Click here to apply for the AV Intelligence Panel that helps to build the monthly Pro-AV Business Index.

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