small business outlook
The US Chamber of Commerce released it’s quarterly survey results about small business owners and their feelings about the small business outlook of the country. According to their survey, eight out of ten small business owners think the country is on the wrong track. More than half expect it to get worse over the next two years.
The study was taken by 1482 small business executives who have fewer than 500 employees and annual revenue less than 25 million. Almost all small businesses are looking for more certainty in Washington.
86% say that the new added regulations and taxes will negatively affect their business, healthcare costs being their number one concern. And almost two thirds say that healthcare costs will make it harder to hire new employees. Almost all say that revenue from energy exploration will help improve the economic climate and create jobs.
One of the toughest issues for the country as a whole is hiring. Over half of all small businesses have put hiring on hold the past year, and 64% say they don’t plan to hire any new employees. That trend is expected to continue into the next year.
A lot of the numbers depend on the location of the business. Some businesses feel their local economies are improving as well as their own businesses.
Hmmm… let’s put this down and look back at it a year from now, because I’m not sure I agree. If you look at the flow of the economic cycle for the past two hundred years, you see recessions are always followed by good times, which in turn are followed by recessions. If you look at this chart,
http://bit.ly/economy_chart
you can see how surprisingly regular the cycle has behave in recent times. Even the past 2009 recession arrived right on schedule.
That being the case, we are just emerging from the last recession. If past history is any indication, we should be able to look forward to at least two more years of recovery before the next recession strikes.
Surveys like these are almost always lagging, rather than leading. If you look at surveys in 2006 and 2007, they all said happy days are here again, and will be forever. Or something like that. People project their immediate past into their future. In 2010, nobody thought it would be smart not buy a house for a rental. “Houses are going down every day,” they would have said. Now look. If you did buy a house in 2010, you’re looking pretty smart right about now. And I would expect that to look even better a couple of years from now.
We’re entering a period when most business will see improvement in revenues and profits. Time to make hay if you’re selling your services to business like those.
Happy New Year, by the way….
Only two more years of recovery? I hope you’re wrong, William because myself and 81% of all small business owners don’t believe we are even out of the first recession yet. If we only have 2 more years before the s**t hits the fan again I have even less hope for the future. I wouldn’t call 2% growth a booming economy. Unfortunately the people in Greece haven’t learned their lesson yet and it doesn’t look like they ever will. Will America? Only time will tell.
No, no, no…. I believe we have AT LEAST another 2 years. I’m jut trying to be conservative. If you look at the chart, you’ll see recessions hit every 7-10 years. Given that the recovery out of the last one has been so slow, I’m figuring the next one won’t hit until like 2019 or so.
However, the wild card here is whether or not inflation spirals out of control, and how aggressively the Fed jumps in to choke it off. The only tool the Fed has to choke off inflation is to induce a recession by raising interest rates (anyone remember 18% home mortgages in 1980?).
My main point is I’m not seeing the gloominess sin the forecast you mentioned…