Nearly two-thirds of America’s small businesses expect to see a moderate to large impact on their businesses as a result of widespread vaccine distribution, according to a nationwide study released by Thryv Holdings, Inc. and America’s Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) The study also provides insight into how the vaccine roll-out will affect different business industries.
The study showed that industries expecting a large impact from the vaccine included personal services, such as hair salons and restaurants, doctors, and businesses catering to pets. Industries expecting the least impact from the vaccine included home services, home repair and auto-related services. Industries expecting a large impact from the vaccine were also the ones who most strongly supported increased government stimulus.
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Concerning expectations for their business to rebound following the pandemic, 66 percent of respondents expect to be mostly or totally recovered in 12 months, while 31 percent said they will be only half or less than half recovered. Four percent expect to be out of business before the pandemic ends.
“We can’t yet predict exactly how long it will take small businesses to fully recover to where they were before the pandemic,” said Gordon Henry, Chief Strategy Officer at Thryv. “But the vaccine roll-out is giving a lot of business owners hope that recovery is in sight. I hope that soon, more and more people will feel safe going out to local businesses and supporting services that require physical contact.”
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Thryv — a SaaS and marketing solutions company with over 400,000 small business clients worldwide — and America’s SBDC initially conducted the nationwide small business study from March 20 to July 2, 2020, where 4,244 small businesses participated. The organizations continued to track the business climate as the pandemic progressed.
The study’s participants are owners or senior managers of small businesses across over 100 industries. The majority of these businesses are well established. More than half (51 percent) of these businesses have been in business for more than 30 years. Six in ten have annual revenue below $500,000. Female and minority owned businesses represent 35 percent of those completing the survey.
“We are hopeful that small business activity will resume as the country begins to open back up,” Henry said. “We have been advocates and supporters of small businesses at Thryv for decades, and while COVID-19 hit a large swath of small businesses hard, we have been deeply impressed with the resiliency and creativeness of America’s entrepreneurs. We believe in small business and we are optimistic that a sense of normalcy could be returning.”
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