Economic Development Business Climate Survey 2021

Thank you to all who responded to the first Economic Development Business Climate Survey.  The survey was conducted from January 14, 2021 to February 12, 2021 to gather feedback from Georgetown businesses.  There was a total of 96 responses.  Congratulations to the winners of the raffle for respondents: Bert Brady, John Galaviz, Michael Valencia.  Your prize will be mailed to you.

The general industry representation of respondents was spread among Retail trade 21%; Other services 13.7%; Financial & Insurance 12.6% ; Manufacturing 10.5%;  Healthcare 10.5%,  Restaurant 7%; Construction 6%, Professional & Scientific 4%, and the combination of Agriculture/Educational Services/Hospitality/Arts & Entertainment/Real Estate/Wholesale comprising 14.7%.

Overall, most businesses indicated that they are open as usual (71%), with another 24% indicating they are open on a limited basis.  While supply chain disruptions did not apply to or did not affect most respondents, 32% indicated that they did have supply chain disruptions but have recovered.  The impact on workforce  decisions over the last 6 months related to COVID was balanced between 52% saying they had no additional cuts to employee hours or wages compared to 40% saying there were cuts to hours or wages.  Most said there were no additional layoffs over the last 6 months due to COVID at 69% compared to 23%  indicating there were additional layoffs.  The majority (58%) of businesses reported revenue declines.  Interestingly, a large majority of business are planning to hire new part time or temporary employees 43%, or new fulltime employees 42% over the next 6 months.  Some employers are concerned about the ability to hire workers back 31%, but the majority are not concerned 45%.  When asked about 6 categories of concern in the upcoming year:

(Maintaining adequate cash flow: Incurring excessive debt: Collecting payables from customers: Getting adequate credit from suppliers: Maintaining solvency: Paying back loans / forgiveness of PPP loan), overall respondents were not overly concerned about these issues with the larger percentage of responses in the Not concerned at all.  The category where there was a larger proportion being somewhat concerned was in maintaining adequate cash flow 39%.

We appreciate your sharing what else you would like the City and Eco Dev to know that would help you continue to operate and grow your business in Georgetown.  While the comments were diverse in nature there were some clusters including Downtown/The Square related and Ease/eliminate COVID restrictions.  We will reach out to businesses indicating that it was okay to do so to.