Support for New Micros Needed As Economy Worsens
Oct 27th, 2008 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: EconomyIt’s looking pretty grim out there. A lot of microbusiness owners, watchers and advocates (myself included) were anticipating that microbusiness owners could cheerfully weather any credit crunch dealt by Wall Street, in light of the fact that microbusiness owners generally get by without access to credit under the best of circumstances. But as consumers pull back and businesses cut jobs in response, it’s looking like the economic weakness that started with the housing market collapse and seemed to culminate on Wall Street last month is not going to leave microbusinesses unscathed.
One unexplored effect of rising unemployment rates will probably be another surge in nonemployer numbers, such as we saw in the 2002-2005 period. Over the next few quarters, we’ll also find out whether microbusiness employers again are able to continuing hiring through most of a recession, making things not quite so bad for the labor market. And Congress is making noises about a lame duck session to hammer out another economic stimulus package. Will the consider that self-employment is supporting so many displaced workers and opt to support self-employment? Will they remember microbusinesses as recession period job creators and direct federal procurement dollars their way, to provide for a robust customer when all other customers will have closed their wallets? Probably not, but that is what is really needed.
