CFOs and other senior finance executives are feeling less optimistic about their business expansion plans as tariff worries increase in the U.S. and other parts of the world, according to a new survey.

The survey, released Tuesday by Brex, polled over 500 senior finance executives at global enterprises in the first quarter of the year, and found that optimism falling off sharply in recent months when it comes to growth.

“Strong early-in-the-year optimism around growth, IPOs, and M&As eroded sharply post-tariffs, with growth positivity alone dropping nearly 20 points,” wrote Brex president and CFO Ben Gammell. “Expansion plans have been replaced with calls for stronger risk management frameworks, and leaders are delaying major moves not out of caution, but out of strategic patience. They’re quickly recognizing that moving fast doesn’t always mean moving first.”

Two-thirds (67%) of the finance leaders polled rank mitigating geopolitical instability as the top external concern for 2025. Amid the whiplash over tariff policy, business outlooks have shifted, with positivity about fundraising declining 25 points from 87% to 62%. Employment rates have similarly fallen 24 points from 91% to  67%. Global talent and hiring is also down 20 points from 92% to 72%, while company growth prospects have decreased 18 points from 93% to 75%.

The percentage of leaders who are feeling “significantly more bullish” on the IPO market has dropped from 29% to 18%, while those who are feeling “moderately more bullish” fell from 56% to 48%. Meanwhile, the percentage of CFOs who are feeling “moderately more bearish” doubled from 6% to 18%.

M&A outlook followed a similar pattern, with the percentage of significantly more bullish respondents declining from 40% to 22%, and those who are “moderately more bearish” respondents doubled from 8% to 16%.

Companies feel under pressure to do more with less, and CFOs need to step into more strategic, cross-functional roles, with 95% of the respondents saying their role extends beyond traditional finance, including AI and sales. Among the respondents, 86% of their organizations have a chief accounting officer, and nearly half were hired in the past year. However, only about 50% of finance leaders believe they have real control over where the money goes.

CFOs are consolidating tools, accelerating payments, and proving the return on investment of artificial intelligence as they streamline operations and scale global finance, Three-fourths (75%) of the finance leaders polled indicated they are feeling pressure to prove AI’s ROI, and 87% of finance leaders said their vendors should offer more services so they can consolidate their tech stack. Some 70% of the respondents feel their tools and software are too complex, 73% believe their expense and accounting processes are too manual, and 69% say they have too many financial vendors.

Hourly earnings growth for employees at small businesses slowed this month to its lowest level since May 2021, according to a report Tuesday from payroll company Paychex, while hiring growth remained consistent with recent months.

The Paychex Small Business Employment Watch, which tracks U.S. businesses with fewer than 50 employees, found that hourly earnings growth for small business workers slowed to 2.82%, the lowest percentage in four years.

“Hourly earnings just continues to slow,” said Frank Fiorille, vice president of risk, compliance and data analytics at Paychex. 

He noted that consumer confidence is also down, according to another report released Tuesday from the Conference Board that found its Consumer Confidence Index fell by 7.9 points in April to 86.0, the lowest level since May 2020. “We’re not seeing any recession data yet, but clearly there’s been a slowdown in the labor market,” said Fiorille.

Job growth ticked up slightly in April, gaining 0.27 percentage points to reach an index level of 100.02 on the Small Business Jobs Index component of the Paychex report. The index has averaged 99.99 over the past 12 months. Weekly hours worked growth (-0.17%) remained negative in April despite one-month annualized growth of 2.62%.

All four regional jobs indexes improved this month, led by a 0.81 percentage-point gain in the Midwest, which remains the top region for small business job growth for the 11th month in a row.

Ohio spiked 2.24 percentage points to an index level of 101.94 in April, ranking in first place among the states for the first time since Paychex began reporting in 2014, thanks to significant job growth gains in the trade, transportation and utilities sectors.

Minneapolis also reported strong job gains again in April, reaching an index level of 102.35,  and topped the state rankings for the second month in a row.

The professional and business services sector gained 0.82 percentage points to reach a jobs index level of 100.36, marking the best one-month gain among industry sectors in April.

Fiorille hasn’t yet seen an impact from the Trump administration’s ramped up tariffs and deportations on small business payrolls, but has heard some anecdotal stories from clients.

“You’re definitely hearing a lot of stories about that, but we’re not really seeing that yet in the data,” he said. “That might be something that takes a little bit of time to work through when we might see that.”

He advises accountants to keep an eye on developments in Washington regarding tax and tariff policy as the tax reconciliation bill makes its way through Congress. 

“Businesses are kind of frozen right now,” said Fiorille. “They’re waiting to see what happens with policy, and then they’ll take action. They’re holding onto employees, maybe not firing or laying them off and maybe doing things like reducing hours, or not hiring temp help or staffing firms.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent set a July 4 goal to pass President Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax cut package as polling shows that voters largely disapprove of the White House’s handling of the economy.

“We hope that we can have this tax portion done by the Fourth of July,” Bessent said Monday following a meeting with congressional leaders.

The Treasury secretary and National Economic Director Kevin Hassett met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the two tax committee chairmen, Senator Mike Crapo and Representative Jason Smith. Congress returned to Washington on Monday following a two-week break, and the tax bill is the party’s top legislative priority.

Trump has put increasing pressure on Republicans to pass the measure, going so far as to tell Michigan’s Republican lawmakers to stay in Washington rather than join him for a speech Tuesday in the state marking his first 100 days in office. Trump and Johnson also met earlier Monday.

Thune on Monday evening called the Independence Day deadline “aspirational” and said he wasn’t making any commitments regarding timing. He added that he was more concerned about when the debt limit expires later this year. “That is a hard deadline for us,” Thune said.

Bessent’s July 4 timeline puts additional pressure on Republicans to approve a tax bill. Johnson has set an end-of-May goal for the House to pass legislation that includes a renewal of Trump’s first-term cuts and a fresh round of levy reductions, partly paid for by curbing federal spending. 

“I believe we can pass it by Memorial Day,” Johnson said Monday evening. He said that Congress could “save Medicaid,” the health care program for the poor and disabled, but that “we have to find the requisite number of savings.” 

The Senate isn’t likely to complete work on the measure for months, with party leaders in that chamber having set their sights on a vote by August. Trump’s first-term tax cuts don’t expire until the end of the year. 

The push on taxes follows a series of polls that show Americans souring on the president’s handling of pocketbook issues. A CNN poll released Sunday showed that just 39% of Americans approve of how Trump has steered the economy, the lowest of his two terms in the White House. An NBC News poll showed tariffs Trump imposed are also deeply unpopular.

Hassett downplayed the notion that the measure could include a tax increase for millionaires, an idea that had been discussed in some Republican circles. Trump said he loves the concept, but worries about the political ramifications.

Hassett, in response to a question about whether a millionaire tax increase could be included in the bill, said “the president has said it is not.”

Earlier this month, Republicans passed a budget resolution that would allow them to fast-track the tax bill through Congress without needing to make any concessions to attract Democratic votes. 

Republicans have already put forward some of the easier pieces of the eventual package, including a $150 billion boost to defense spending and new cuts to federal worker pensions. But GOP lawmakers have yet to make significant progress on the specifics of the legislation, including which tax priorities to include and which health care spending to cut.

Hassett told Fox Business last week that he and Bessent will present a “list of the president’s top priorities to make sure they make it into the bill” during Monday’s meeting. 

Earlier Monday, Bessent touted some campaign proposals from Trump specifically calling out “no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime and making auto loans deductible.”

After the Treasury secretary met with GOP congressional leaders, he added that he expects the package will have a new tax benefit to write off the cost of building factories in the U.S.

Bessent said tax revenue is up compared to last year, a possible sign that the government won’t hit the legal debt limit until later than anticipated. He said an official estimate of the debt ceiling default date would come later in the week or next week.

The Congressional Budget Office last month had forecast the federal government would likely run out of enough money to pay all its bills by August or September if lawmakers fail to raise or suspend the debt limit. It has said the date could be as soon as May if revenues came up short.