Survey Findings Offers Good And Bad News

A survey of small business owners offers a mixed bag on Covid-19 and business recovery. Alignable, an online network of small business operators in North America, just released its State Of Small Business Report for August. It's the organization's latest assessment of the ups and downs of the often rocky small business recovery.

Key insights include:

• Many small-to-medium-size businesses (SMBs) accurately predicted a July hiring slowdown back in May; now they say there will be a small hiring uptick by the end of August.
• 32% of SMBs report customer numbers are back up to what they experienced before the virus - an 8% jump over last month.
• But revenues continue to lag with just 26% of small business owners reporting they are at pre-Covid levels. 47% say they're operating with only half (or less) of January 2020 revenues.
• Beyond lost revenues, the No. 1 worry among SMBs is now government-enforced re-closure.
• 74% are negatively affected by the Covid era, but 12% say it has increased their revenues.

The survey's authors caution the big unknown is how the August resurgence in Covid-19 cases will impact small business and local recovery.