LANSING Thirty five percent of small business owners in Michigan say they had an increase in sales during the second quarter of this year, the highest level of small business sales increases in the past four years, the Small Business Association of Michigan reported Wednesday in its Small Business Barometer.
The second quarter increase was substantially higher than the 23 percent sales increase reported in the last survey done in January, and the highest sales increase since the second quarter of 2000.
Entrepreneurs are also upbeat about their future prospects. Fifty nine percent expect sales to increase in the next year. Thirty nine percent expect profits to rise. Twenty nine percent plan to hire more workers.
“It looks like the nation’s economic rebound is finally working its way down to Michigan’s small business sector,” said SBAM Vice President Communications Michael Rogers. “One very positive aspect of the survey is that nearly a third of small business owners plan to increase their number of employees. That’s tremendously important to the Michigan economy, since nearly all net new jobs are created by small businesses and over half of the state’s private sector jobs are in small businesses.”
The only dark clouds on the economic horizon is the finding that only ten percent of small business owners reported increases in their level of investment (machinery, computers, building, etc) in their small business operations during the previous quarter, the lowest level in the 10 year history of the Barometer.
“The low level may reflect the significant profit pressures entrepreneurs have faced in recent years,” Rogers says. “Combined with skyrocketing health insurance costs, there hasn’t been a lot of extra money to plow back into the business.”
This survey was provided by SBAM. For more information about SBAM, click on SBAM.Org
