Small Business Optimism Showing No Real Enthusiasm

The National Federation of Independent Business says Small Business Optimism only rose by one-tenth of a point for July, showing no significant enthusiasm for expansion. NFIB State Director Dawn Starns links this feeling to the uncertainty small business owners now face with all the recent tax changes Louisiana has seen during the legislative session.

She says business owners are now going into maintenance mode.

“They are just looking to maintain their labor costs, maintain the cost of doing business, maintain you know keeping their doors open.”

Starns says in a booming economy we’d see small business owners making investments into expansion and creating more jobs, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Although she is hopeful things will look up when we near the election in the fall and believes lawmakers will address this in the April legislative session.

“And they look and see okay, if small business owners aren’t excited about how the outlook is, that’s not going to help our economy and therefore help our state.”

Starns says small business owners are having a difficult time finding qualified and good workers and cite that’s their third single most important business problem. She says it’s hard when businesses have a limited number of employees and some gets sick and others are on vacation…

“You need to be able to have a qualified workforce to be able to pick from whenever you need temporary work or even full time work whenever you need to replace somebody. It’s just an uphill climb.”