[ad_1]
While many small business owners in both rural and urban settings say their businesses have recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report shows that more than half of small business owners in rural areas are struggling to thrive in the economy. I feel uncertain about the future.
According to a report titled “The Megaphone of Main Street: The Small Business Rural/Urban Divide,” rural entrepreneurs are more likely than non-rural entrepreneurs to believe demographic trends will affect their business. I have found it to be very high quality. The report found that local businesses are hurting workers. Demographic change is posing challenges for small rural employers, with more than one-third of them (35.9%) saying there are few qualified workers in the area. .
“The single biggest challenge for rural communities in our time is the very nature of rural communities, the fact that there are not many people,” said John Mozena, director of the Center for Economic Accountability. He was not involved in the report’s methodology, but spoke about it as an outside source.
Mozena said one aspect of the report that surprised him a little was the number of people who still don’t have broadband. According to the report, rural entrepreneurs (19.2%) cite broadband/high-speed internet access as a technology challenge twice as much as non-urban entrepreneurs (9%). Meanwhile, both rural and non-rural SMEs say they suffer from a lack of technology knowledge and support.
“Obviously, I know there are still many places in rural areas where broadband is not completely unavailable, but is still a real challenge,” said Mozena. “Based on how many employers and small business people say it’s a challenge, I thought it was better than it looked from the report.
Mozena added that many small businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors began during the pandemic.
“An unprecedented number of small businesses have formed during and immediately after Covid,” he said, later adding: Anyone who has spent time in rural America knows that it’s kind of the way…people will have two, three, or four jobs. ”
This study surveyed entrepreneurs who agreed to be contacted for research. From this master list of 37,055 people, 3,476 completed the survey, giving him a response rate of 9.4%. Since the purpose of this survey is to hear the voices of current business owners, we asked respondents about the current stage of their business. After screening, 3,345 were identified as current or potential business owners. Of these respondents, 882 (26.4%) said that they were “usually located in urban areas or along national highways, well away from metropolitan areas. .”
Republish articles online or in print for free under a Creative Commons license.
close the window
republish this article
1
[ad_2]
Source link
