A Year After Lockdown: Latest Data On The State Of Small Business And Entrepreneurship forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
How Vaccines Are Saving Small Business By Karen Kerrigan
04/04/21 AT 7:10 AM Though hiring increased, US small businesses are more concerned about the future amid the Covid-19 pandemic Photo: AFP / Patrick T. Fallon
Americans are slowly returning to their favorite mom-and-pop shops and locally-owned restaurants. With COVID-19 cases falling each day, and 14% of the population fully vaccinated, most states have lifted the strictest lockdown measures.
Of course, relief can t come soon enough for small to mid-size businesses. These firms are the backbone of our economy, accounting for more than 40% of GDP and almost half of all jobs. And our economy will depend on these firms to create new jobs and quickly rebuild to bring the nation back to full recovery.
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If the February US jobs report signaled that America is truly rounding the final corner on the Covid-19 pandemic, then after a month of ramped up vaccinations and warmer weather, the latest data suggest that the world’s largest economy is now in an all-out sprint to herd immunity and a full reopening.
US employers added 916,000 jobs in March, easily beating the 660,000 gain projected by economists in a Bloomberg survey and surpassing even the more optimistic crowd-sourced “whisper number” of 800,000. The unemployment rate fell to 6%, matching estimates, while the labor force participation rate ticked higher to 61.5%, though it remains stubbornly close to the most depressed level since the 1970s. February’s payroll additions were revised higher by 89,000 to 468,000, meaning that combined with the new March figures from the Labor Department, the US gained just more than a million jobs.
PPP, EIDL helped small businesses weather winter, see optimism in 2021 bizjournals.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bizjournals.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Where Small Business Sentiment Is More Positive for 2021
Where Small Business Sentiment Is More Positive for 2021
In these metro areas, small companies are more likely to be back to business as usual or expect to be by midyear.
This story originally appeared on SmartAsset.com.
The Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey shows that during the first week of December 2020, business expectations were depressed nationwide.
While less than 2% of small businesses have closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, 52.9% of small businesses nationally expect they won’t return to normal levels of operation for at least six months or ever.
Though that outlook may seem a bit bleak, business sentiment remains stronger in some places compared to others.