By : MICHAEL REED
Source : http://www.yourhoustonnews.com
Category : Small Business Grant
The Houston area is home to 90,249 small businesses.
It’s a big number that tends to garner little attention as analysts point to the region’s more imposing accomplishments – the Medical Center, the Houston Port, the energy sector – as what blunted the blow of the recession in this part of the country.
Yet, according to the Greater Houston Partnership, which encompasses 10 counties, including Harris, Brazoria, Fort Bend and Montgomery, 95 percent of its area businesses employ fewer than 100 people.
That’s a lot of jobs – perhaps as many as 1.3 million, accounting for total wages in excess of $45 billion a year, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought it was anything like that many,” said Felix Garza, who works as a machinist at two small shops north of downtown. “That’s a lot of people buying things instead of out hustling around for food money.”
A lot of people buying things and keeping the unemployment rate relatively in check at 7.3 percent for December vs. 7.8 percent in Texas and 8.5 percent, nationally.
Tony Chase, GHP’s new chairman, describing himself as “bullish” on small businesses, announced recently that boosting smaller companies, as a source of jobs and innovative ideas, will be among his priorities during his tenure.
‘It makes sense’
“I think in Houston the prospects are pretty bright from a small-business perspective. Our energy economy is doing quite well, and that sort of filters down to small businesses,” he said. “It makes sense to promote them.”
He cited GHP’s recently launched Small Business Resource Center and the Hire Houston First guidelines at the city level as positive steps. Additionally, he said the partnership will advocate for an expansion of loan programs and other initiatives tailored for small businesses.
Along those lines, part of the Obama administration’s Feb. 13 budget package will call for a 10 percent federal tax credit for small-business owners who raise wages or add jobs.
Locally, it appears some employers with staffs of less than 500 workers have seen reasons to be optimistic about the coming year, based on a survey by the Memorial City-based staffing firm of Murray Resources.
When asked about the overall economic state of their company, 74.4 percent said they expected it to get at least “moderately better,” while 69.7 percent expected employment opportunities to improve during the coming year.
In fact, 60.5 percent of respondents from the 17 industry classifications said attracting qualified employees during the next 12 months will likely present more of a problem than the cost of health care (16.3 percent).
While not intended as a scientific study, the numbers are encouraging.
‘A brick wall’
“I can see why people are a little upbeat,” said Barton Smith, a University of Houston economist, who has done budget studies for both the city of Houston and Metro Transit Authority. “But when you look for hard data on small business gains, I think you are going to run into a brick wall.”
To a large extent, he was right.
Among the problems, most employment and income statistics do not distinguish one size of business from the other. Additionally, criteria changes made by the BLS in 2001 have made projections based on trends tricky at best.
Not only that, even anecdotally, comparisons are difficult because different sources categorize “small businesses” differently from each other. The Small Business Administration goes further, defining some businesses as small based on number employed – manufacturing can concerns cannot exceed 500 workers, wholesale trade 100 workers, etc. For other sectors, though, such as agriculture, total payroll is the determining factor.
“For small businesses the turnover rate (number going out of business) is always enormous, especially in hospitality and entertainment,” Smith said of other data limitations. “Small business is important to employment because there are survivors, and they do a lot. It kind of reminds me of college football players. How many of them go on to have careers in the NFL?”
There are, of course, factors that originate outside the Houston region that have adversely affected local small-business owners. Chief among those, according to Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, is financing tied to real estate.
“They can’t tap equity in homes, making them reluctant to expand and causing them to play defense, he said. “Lending has picked up some due to changes in the tax codes. There is a little bit of growth, now.”
Vitner said many small businesses that survived the economic upheavals of the last couple of years, regardless of region, are now looking to expand, in part, because competitors have fallen by the wayside. Additionally, Wells Fargo has seen “some very rapid growth” in businesses tied to mobile Internet services and energy.
He added, “Energy is already pretty important where you live, right?”
Source : http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/ranch/news/small-business-providing-big-boost-to-regional-economy/article_df44b32c-4520-5f02-a451-e4874150fad5.html
Source : http://www.yourhoustonnews.com
Category : Small Business Grant
The Houston area is home to 90,249 small businesses.
It’s a big number that tends to garner little attention as analysts point to the region’s more imposing accomplishments – the Medical Center, the Houston Port, the energy sector – as what blunted the blow of the recession in this part of the country.
Yet, according to the Greater Houston Partnership, which encompasses 10 counties, including Harris, Brazoria, Fort Bend and Montgomery, 95 percent of its area businesses employ fewer than 100 people.
That’s a lot of jobs – perhaps as many as 1.3 million, accounting for total wages in excess of $45 billion a year, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought it was anything like that many,” said Felix Garza, who works as a machinist at two small shops north of downtown. “That’s a lot of people buying things instead of out hustling around for food money.”
A lot of people buying things and keeping the unemployment rate relatively in check at 7.3 percent for December vs. 7.8 percent in Texas and 8.5 percent, nationally.
Tony Chase, GHP’s new chairman, describing himself as “bullish” on small businesses, announced recently that boosting smaller companies, as a source of jobs and innovative ideas, will be among his priorities during his tenure.
‘It makes sense’
“I think in Houston the prospects are pretty bright from a small-business perspective. Our energy economy is doing quite well, and that sort of filters down to small businesses,” he said. “It makes sense to promote them.”
He cited GHP’s recently launched Small Business Resource Center and the Hire Houston First guidelines at the city level as positive steps. Additionally, he said the partnership will advocate for an expansion of loan programs and other initiatives tailored for small businesses.
Along those lines, part of the Obama administration’s Feb. 13 budget package will call for a 10 percent federal tax credit for small-business owners who raise wages or add jobs.
Locally, it appears some employers with staffs of less than 500 workers have seen reasons to be optimistic about the coming year, based on a survey by the Memorial City-based staffing firm of Murray Resources.
When asked about the overall economic state of their company, 74.4 percent said they expected it to get at least “moderately better,” while 69.7 percent expected employment opportunities to improve during the coming year.
In fact, 60.5 percent of respondents from the 17 industry classifications said attracting qualified employees during the next 12 months will likely present more of a problem than the cost of health care (16.3 percent).
While not intended as a scientific study, the numbers are encouraging.
‘A brick wall’
“I can see why people are a little upbeat,” said Barton Smith, a University of Houston economist, who has done budget studies for both the city of Houston and Metro Transit Authority. “But when you look for hard data on small business gains, I think you are going to run into a brick wall.”
To a large extent, he was right.
Among the problems, most employment and income statistics do not distinguish one size of business from the other. Additionally, criteria changes made by the BLS in 2001 have made projections based on trends tricky at best.
Not only that, even anecdotally, comparisons are difficult because different sources categorize “small businesses” differently from each other. The Small Business Administration goes further, defining some businesses as small based on number employed – manufacturing can concerns cannot exceed 500 workers, wholesale trade 100 workers, etc. For other sectors, though, such as agriculture, total payroll is the determining factor.
“For small businesses the turnover rate (number going out of business) is always enormous, especially in hospitality and entertainment,” Smith said of other data limitations. “Small business is important to employment because there are survivors, and they do a lot. It kind of reminds me of college football players. How many of them go on to have careers in the NFL?”
There are, of course, factors that originate outside the Houston region that have adversely affected local small-business owners. Chief among those, according to Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, is financing tied to real estate.
“They can’t tap equity in homes, making them reluctant to expand and causing them to play defense, he said. “Lending has picked up some due to changes in the tax codes. There is a little bit of growth, now.”
Vitner said many small businesses that survived the economic upheavals of the last couple of years, regardless of region, are now looking to expand, in part, because competitors have fallen by the wayside. Additionally, Wells Fargo has seen “some very rapid growth” in businesses tied to mobile Internet services and energy.
He added, “Energy is already pretty important where you live, right?”
Source : http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/ranch/news/small-business-providing-big-boost-to-regional-economy/article_df44b32c-4520-5f02-a451-e4874150fad5.html
