Small businesses in Missouri are continuing to struggle, with leisure and hospitality revenue down by 36 percent compared to the start of the year, with economic analysts seeing it leveling off.
While the sector has recovered from the lows of the middle of the shut down - when revenues collapsed by nearly 75 percent - the number of leisure and hospitality businesses open now is 25 percent less than in January.
The figures were reported by Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker, a joint project by Harvard and Brown universities.
Jones
Consumer spending on entertainment and recreation also plunged an extraordinary more than 70 percent, according to the tracker. Yet, overall consumer spending is only down 3.5 percent in the state.
Overall, small business revenue has dropped 14.4 percent, while the numbers of businesses open is down 19 percent. After numbers dropped dramatically in the early days of the pandemic, there were significant increases but appears to be levelling off.
Yet, business leaders say there is some optimism among business owners, with the state director of National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), Brad Jones telling the St. Louis Record that employment is expected to increase over the next three months, citing the organization employer confidence index.
The numbers planning to create continues to increase and is now at 21 percent, up from a moribund one percent in April.
"Construction job growth continues to be strong but owners in the sector are having a particularly hard time finding skilled employees," the NFIB reports.
"The manufacturing sector’s employment remained strong but not as strong as seen in previous months. The service sector is the missing link and the key to stronger job growth going forward."
Forty-seven percent of business owners owners reported capital spending down 2 points from July and 16 below January’s level.
"There is an improvement. It is not too bad, definitely not where we were four or five months ago," said Jones, adding that the outlook is a "mixed bag" of good and bad.
"Small businesses are looking at a couple of things, the same as the general public, vaccine, turning the corner on the pandemic, and the November election.
"Small businsses are out doing what they have to do, figuring out a way to stay in business, but the thing they hate most is uncertainty."