According to Grant Thornton LLP’s 17th Bank Executive Survey, conducted in conjunction with Bank Director magazine, 82 percent say that the number of people their bank employs will either increase or remain the same in the next six months. The same amount (80%) feel that the U.S. economy will either improve or remain the same in the next six months and that their local economy will either improve or remain the same in the next six months (82%). This is a huge improvement over last year’s numbers, when 86 percent of bankers were pessimistic about the state of the U.S. economy.

“Bankers’ opinions on the economy have certainly shifted compared to this time last year,” said John Ziegelbauer, managing partner of Grant Thornton’s Financial Institutions practice. “We still have a long way to go, but they are moving in the right direction.”

In regards to their bank’s loan portfolios in the coming year, the majority reported that they expect to see the most loan losses in their commercial loan portfolios – commercial loans (17%) and commercial real estate loans (55%) – with the next largest category being residential real estate loans at 12 percent.

“A deeper look into the regional data shows that bankers in the Southeast region are more pessimistic about expected losses in commercial real estate loan portfolios (65%) compared to the bankers in the Northeast region (45%),” said Rick Huff, Financial Institution partner in Grant Thornton’s Philadelphia office. “Additionally, bankers in the Northeast responded that they expect to see more losses in single and multi-family real estate loans (22%) compared to bankers in the Southeast (10%). It appears that Southeast bankers believe that the worst of the residential real estate losses is over; while Northeast bankers seem to be predicting that the worst is yet to come for residential portfolios.”

* Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.