Retail

Survey says over 80% of U.S. small businesses expect long-term impact from pandemic

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May 11, 2020

San Francisco-based Veem, a global payments network, surveyed 630 small business companies on a variety of issues regarding how the coronavirus has affected their business and outlook.

On the future of the economy, nearly 90% of those surveyed are prepared for a slow economy post-pandemic, yet 13% of those surveyed stated they were not taking any measures to prepare for the slowdown, according to an article on Reuters.com.

In regards to long-term impact from the coronavirus, 81% of those surveyed expect long-term impact to their business due to the coronavirus.

Regarding aid, 65% said they had either submitted an application for federal aid or were planning to do so in the future.

When it came to the state of the U.S. economy, 55% said they had already experienced some significant impact to revenue yet 30% were still optimistic regarding the future economy.

In regards to operations, 52% of companies said they were cutting operational costs, 54% were putting a freeze on hiring and 23% were going to downsize staff.  

"When you look at the data, there's surprising resiliency with these small and mid-sized businesses," said Marwan Forzley, Veem's chief executive officer. "Despite all the uncertainty, they're trying to make changes in their businesses, to ... either benefit from the situation or repurpose their business so that they're not as badly impacted."