LANSING- Michigan small business economic performance took an abrupt lurch downward this summer, so says the Small Business Association of Michigan’s latest quarterly Small Business Barometer survey.
Forty-four percent of small business owners reported that their sales decreased over the summer, compared to 27 percent who said in the spring that sales had declined. Forty-seven percent said profits dropped, compared to 30 percent last quarter. As a result, 24 percent of small businesses said they decreased their levels of employment, the highest level in the 13-year history of the Barometer survey.
?This is the most discouraging report I?ve ever seen from our Barometer survey, and coming as it does just a month before the election, it should be a clanging alarm bell for political candidates,? says SBAM Vice President Communications Michael Rogers. ?The record-high level of job cuts in small businesses is particularly ominous. It shows that Michigan?s employment problems are not limited to the big automakers.?
Small business owners are gloomy about future hiring prospects. Only 29 percent of small businesses expect to hire more workers over the next year, compared to 36 percent in the previous quarter who said they planned to increase hiring.
The quarterly Barometer survey is sponsored by SBAM with the participation and support of the Center for Urban Studies of Wayne State University. The survey was conducted by Public Policy Associates of Lansing.
