A recent national survey of small and mid-sized businesses conducted by PNC Bank found most companies strongly support vaccinations for COVID-19 and plan to encourage their employees to get the shots.
Survey respondents believe the vaccinations are central to a return to normalcy.
Nearly half of 500 businesses or 48% surveyed plan to require employees to get vaccinated, a third indicated they will provide education about vaccination and almost one quarter or 22% plan to provide incentives to their employees who vaccinate.
Almost half or 45% expect the growing availability of vaccinations to have a positive impact on their sales.
“Clearly, small and mid-sized business owners have high hopes that successful adoption of vaccinations by the public will translate into an improved business environment, but many challenges remain in front of them,” said Gus Faucher, PNC chief economist. “As we saw in our survey last fall, business owners remain resilient as they adapt to the massive economic changes the pandemic has caused, and they expect most of these changes to be genuinely transformative.”
The combination of higher operating costs and the anticipation of stable sales suggests small businesses will start feeling even more of a “squeeze” in their operations than they already are experiencing.
Almost half or 48% say that they are facing challenges to stay in business and nearly one in four or 24% say they can only continue to operate in the current economic conditions for up to a year.
As a result, business owners reported that price hikes may be in store. Among survey respondents, 40% indicated that they plan to increase prices in the next six months, up from fewer than a third in the fall survey.
Nine in 10 or 90% of business owners report making adaptations to their operations in response to COVID-19, including health and safety changes in the form of new policies and procedures (86%) or physical modifications (78%).
Many expect operational changes made because of the pandemic likely will be permanent.
Nearly one in four businesses reported that they reduced their workforce last year and while most are not anticipated to be permanent layoffs but say rehiring will be a slow process.
“Business owners indicated that they will have to cope with these challenges in two ways that are potentially harmful for the broader economic recovery, slowing the rate of hiring and increasing prices for their customers,” Faucher said.
