An economic impact survey by the county chamber alliance showed local businesses are “down, but not out” since the coronavirus crisis started.
Aspire Economic Development and Chamber Alliance in Johnson County conducted a survey between April 18 and 24 to determine the economic impact COVID-19 had locally. About 100 local businesses participated in the survey, which was conducted online through social media and email.
The chamber wanted to understand how to best help local businesses, and also be able to show the scale of the local impact to elected officials, said Christian Maslowski, Aspire’s president and CEO.
Statewide and nationally, there was data. Locally, there was not, Maslowski said.
“They need to understand in their district what’s happening, what’s the reality on the ground,” he said.
Questions on the survey were mostly pulled from similar national surveys that measure economic impact. The results revealed that 82% of respondents are either open for business or closed to the public but still operating. Most reported they are still running at least half of their operations on-site, and 58% are running up to 25% of their operations remotely. The toughest challenge reported—by 30% of respondents—was a lack of goods and services.
What surprised Maslowski the most was the workforce impact data, he said. The study revealed that 23% of the businesses that responded reported having to layoff employees. But, the overall number of impacted workers was 2% of total full-time and 9% of total part-time jobs.
“The silver lining of what surprised me is that a month into this, the businesses that were still open … their percentage of layoffs was not as high as I expected it to be,” Maslowski said.
He was also surprised by the positive responses from business owners who said they still expect to survive despite significant revenue losses, he said.
Slightly more than half of responding businesses lost between 50% and 100% of weekly revenue since the stay-at-home order began in mid-March, and 73% are seeking financial support from federal relief programs.
The survey also revealed that 40% of businesses expect a decline in revenue of 25% or more in the next year, but 62% of respondents reported they could survive two more months of a shutdown or shelter-in-place order.
“The story is we’re down, but not out,” Maslowski said. “There’s been tremendous carnage from this in terms of small business closures and hardship, but there is hope and the data is telling us that.”
His optimistic response does not mean he discounts employees that were already laid off or businesses that already shut down before the survey was conducted, he said.
It is the businesses that are between open and closed, meaning they are still open but the office is closed to the public and employees have to work remotely, that are losing the most money, Maslowski said.
“They’re straddling that perpetual state of transition,” he said. “They’re trying to stay open, but there’s not a lot of business to be had.”
Aspire will use the data to determine what programming it needs to provide to its members. The chamber organization is also in communication with the United Way of Johnson County, and this Intel will also be used so the nonprofit agency can allocate social services properly, Maslowski said.
Aspire plans to conduct the same survey again in a month, continuing to track changes in the economy.
