Small Business Owners Optimistic Heading into 2018

Small business mentoring organization SCORE has released new survey data that shows small business owners remain firmly optimistic about their business growth in the new year.

According to the report, small business owners also expressed a few marked areas of concern around policies that favor large businesses, difficulties in finding qualified workers, and struggles to provide desirable salaries and healthcare benefits.

Key Findings

1. Small business owner sentiments are overwhelmingly positive.

• 69% of all small business owners are optimistic about their growth over the next six months.
• 82% of millennial business owners (younger than age 35) report feeling very or somewhat optimistic about their growth over the next six months.

2. Looking ahead, business owners share similar concerns.

As a group, business owners reported concerns about the following issues negatively impacting their growth outlook in 2018:

• Policies that favor large businesses (48%)
• Access to capital (39.7%)
• Proposed changes in healthcare (36%)

3. Millennials are most concerned about finding qualified workers.

• Above any other issue, millennial business owners were most concerned about their ability to find and keep qualified workers (41%), compared to 33% of all business owners.
• On average, just 26% of millennial business owners were concerned about policies that favor large businesses, compared to 48% of all business owners.
• 29% of millennial business owners were concerned about proposed changes in healthcare, compared to 36% of all business owners.