Survey shows global trust in business plummets

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - Trust in business plummeted worldwide last year, as the global economic crisis sent financial institutions pleading for government support, leaving average people to question industry's ability to bring prosperity, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Some 62 percent of informed adults aged 25 to 64 told the Edelman Trust Barometer that they trusted businesses less than they had a year ago, with respondents in the United States and Western Europe more suspicious than those in emerging economies.

The biggest drops came in Ireland, where 83 percent of respondents said they had lost trust in business; in Japan, where 79 percent grew more wary; and in the United States, where 77 percent became more suspicious.

Trust evaporated as the world's most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression caused millions to lose their jobs and wiped out billions of dollars of invested capital.

"This is not 2001-2003; this is not limited to the dot-com New Economy concept companies ... This is General Motors; this is your big bank," said Richard Edelman, president and chief executive of U.S. public relations firm Edelman, which commissioned the survey. "It's affected you in the pocketbook and also it's been the mainstays of the economy."

Last year a downturn that started with investors losing confidence in obscure securities from the U.S. mortgage market snowballed, pushing Wall Street banks including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc to their knees and even bringing the North Atlantic nation of Iceland to the brink of bankruptcy.

In the United States, just 38 percent of respondents aged 35 to 64 said they trusted business, down from 58 percent a year earlier and the lowest rating in the survey's 10-year history. The reading is lower even than results in the wake of the dot-com bust and collapse of Enron Corp.

While the survey has been conducted for 10 years, this is the first time questioners have specifically asked whether their trust in business had declined over the past year. The survey has grown to include more countries and a wider age range of respondents over its history.