Thryv survey finds concern among small businesses over COVID’s negative economic impact
Ongoing pandemic poses continued challenges for Main Street America
Dallas, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Concern over the negative impacts of COVID remains high among America’s small businesses, with 82 percent reporting in a recent survey that they are at least “somewhat” concerned.
The survey, conducted by Thryv Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:THRY), the provider of Thryv® software, the end-to-end customer experience platform built for growing small businesses, polled over 750 owners and managers of small businesses. In addition to economic concerns, the survey also revealed that as vaccination rates across the U.S. grow, small businesses are debating whether to mandate vaccination among employees – with a majority (58 percent) responding that they do not plan to require vaccination.
Among the findings of the survey:
- 60 percent of respondents think the U.S. will experience either a mild or deep recession within a year.
- Among those that have attempted to hire new employees, only 38 percent have succeeded.
- 76 percent say it is “somewhat” or “very” much more difficult to hire new employees now, compared to prior to the pandemic.
- About half of those that have employees, or are trying to hire new ones, have recently offered higher wages, with hikes as high as 15 percent.
- 82 percent of small businesses said they have recently experienced shortages – of supplies, materials, inventory, or workers.
- 31 percent say they have had to turn customers away because of the shortages.
“Small business owners welcomed the vaccine roll-out, but many are again concerned as the pandemic drags on and restrictions and lockdowns again become commonplace ,” said Thryv Chief Strategy Officer Gordon Henry. “On top of these COVID-related concerns, small businesses are having difficulty hiring help and accessing supplies. We encourage decision makers to take the steps needed to help local businesses get back to something approaching normality.”
Thryv — a global SaaS and marketing solutions company with over 400,000 small business clients worldwide — and America’s SBDC conducted the nationwide small business study as part of an ongoing effort to track small-business economic outlook amid the ongoing pandemic.
Survey participants are owners or senior managers of small businesses across more than 50 industries. The majority of these businesses are well established. Fifty-five percent have been in operation for over 30 years. Half have annual revenue below $500,000. Female and minority-owned businesses represent 35 percent of those completing the survey.
About Thryv Holdings, Inc.
The company owns the easy-to-use Thryv® end-to-end customer experience software built for small business that helps over 40,000 SaaS clients with the daily demands of running a business. With Thryv, they can get the job, manage the job and get credit. Thryv’s award-winning platform provides modernized business functions, allowing small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to reach more customers, stay organized, get paid faster and generate reviews. These include building a digital customer database, automated marketing through email and text, updating business listings across the internet, scheduling online appointments, sending notifications and reminders, managing ratings and reviews, generating estimates and invoices and processing payments.
Thryv supports franchise operators and multi-location business owners with Hub by Thryv™, a software console that enables business managers to oversee their operations using the Thryv software.
Thryv also connects local businesses to consumer services through our search, display and social media management products, our print directories featuring The Real Yellow Pages® tagline, and our local search portals, which operate under the DexKnows.com®, Superpages.com® and Yellowpages.com URLs and reach some 35 million monthly visitors. For more information about the company, visit thryv.com.
Thryv delivers business services to more than 400,000 SMBs globally that enable them to compete and win in today’s economy.
Thryv acquired Sensis, Australia’s leading digital, marketing and directory services provider, which helps Australians connect and engage through its leading platforms, digital consumer businesses (Yellow™, White Pages™, TrueLocal™ and Whereis™), search engine marketing and optimization services, website products, social, data and mapping solutions, and through its digital agency Found™. Sensis is also Australia’s largest print directory publisher including the Yellow Pages™ and White Pages™.
Headquartered in Melbourne, Sensis has a sales presence in all states and territories across Australia.
Learn more about Thryv on LinkedIn and Medium.
Media Contact:
Paige Blankenship
Thryv, Inc.
214.392.9609
Investor Contact:
Cameron Lessard
214.773.7022
cameron.lessard@thryv.com
KJ Christopher
Thryv, Inc.
972.453.7068
###
CONTACT: Paige Blankenship Thryv, Inc. 2143929609 paige.blankenship@thryv.com
