New Survey Shows Small Business Less Willing To Hire Today Than in 2009, Putting Jobs and Recovery at Risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 2, 2010 -- According to a new survey by Angrisani Turnarounds, LLC with data provided by Toluna, Inc., 80 percent of small business owners surveyed said they plan to hold off hiring new full-time employees for the foreseeable future, while 63 percent are delaying major capital equipment purchases. Additionally, a full 91 percent of respondents said they've seen no benefit from the federal Economic Stimulus bill. The Small Business Sentiment Survey (SBSS) targeted small businesses and sole proprietors across the country and in a variety of industries.

While these figures seem negative enough in their own right, there is worse news yet. Based on data from an earlier Angrisani Turnaround/Toluna survey, the newest numbers indicate a worsening trend. In October 2009, 52 percent of SBSS respondents said they were disinclined to hire new full-time employees, while 80 percent said they'd seen no benefit from the Stimulus Bill. On one positive note, 53 percent of respondents said that, if given the chance, they would start their businesses again.

An Epidemic of Risk-Aversion

According to Al Angrisani, CEO and founder of Angrisani Turnarounds and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Reagan, this trend indicates a pandemic of risk-aversion among small business owners which, if gone unchecked, could threaten the fragile economic recovery.

“A psychology of risk-aversion threatens to grip small business owners, the engine of job growth, largely due to concerns over the weak economic recovery and no obvious flow-through benefits from the government stimulus bill,” Angrisani says. “In the January 19 Bloomberg quarterly poll of investors, 77 percent gave the current administration an anti-business label. I believe that same thinking is finding its way into the psyche of small business owners, making them more concerned about surviving than expanding their businesses. That spells trouble for the economy.”

So, while America's largest corporations are making record profits and the stock market inches toward 11,000, small businesses are disconnected from the recovery. To a degree, this explains today's jobless recovery. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses (companies with less than 500 employees) supply just over half of the country’s private-sector workforce and represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

About the Small Business Sentiment Survey

Angrisani Turnarounds, LLC, commissioned Toluna, Inc., to conduct an online survey of small business owners. The survey, which used a representative sample of 200 owners of businesses with less than 100 employees from various industries and regions, was designed to assess the mood of small business owners. It also asked them to rate those issues presenting the greatest risk to their businesses and their general feeling about the health of their businesses.

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