Survey: Recovery going slow for Iowa’s small businesses

Iowa's small businesses are taking a cautious approach to hiring  in 2011 as they slowly recover from the recession, findings of a University of Northern Iowa survey indicate.

The survey of 459 small  businesses found that 32 percent of small business owners plan to hire new staff in 2011.

Businesses were focused on ramping up their advertising and marketing efforts in order to improve sales. The number of small businesses with declining or unchanged sales improved from 72 percent in the last half of 2009 to 55 percent in 2010.

In the year ahead, 32 percent reported that they plan to hire new staff, and 50 percent are planning to make capital investments.

A majority of 71 percent said they feel that Iowa's economy is improving, and 78 percent indicated they consider Iowa a good place to start a business.

Support for local businesses within communities remained  a sore spot. More than half of the small business owners (58 percent) indicated local support for entrepreneurs has not improved in the last year. Another 42 percent said they considered support stronger than it was a year ago.

Businesses asked about their assistance needs mentioned financing assistance more often than any other issue (44 percent). Marketing and advertising assistance was mentioned by 43 percent, while 33 percent said they could use help with management issues and 27 percent said they could use more help with web development or technology issues.

The survey was returned by 459 businesses in UNI's MyEntre.Net entrepreneurship support system, which was developed in 2003. A total of 8,600 Iowa entrepeneurs participate in the group online.

The survey was conducted via e-mail between Dec. 15, 2010 and Jan. 15, 2011.

Taxes, a perennial concern among small businesses, topped

The survey found only 32 percent of small businesses plan to hire new staff during 2011.