Bleak future for US business owners: Gallup poll

Results from a Gallup poll have shown that US small-business owners have become pessimistic after President Barack Obama’s reelection.

The poll suggests the country’s economy is in a extreme fragile state and at risk to fall into another recession.

The poll was presented on Friday after randomly sampling 607 small-business owners during November 12 to 16.

Expectations from the owners about their financial situation, cash flow, capital spending and hiring over the next 12 months all turned negative in November in comparison to last poll conducted in July of this year.

Concerning the next 12 months, 21 percent of the questioned believed that their company will need to layoff staff, 30 percent anticipate “poor” cash flow and 28 percent expect to be in a “poor” financial position. All of these results were the highest percent ever recorded for this Gallup poll since the start in August 2003.

Thirty-four percent of the owners expected their capital spending would decrease over the next 12 months making it a record high since July of 2010.

With the economy depending on small-businesses to hire, Gallup believes the high percentage of owners thinking of decreasing staff is an indication that there will be a significantly higher unemployment rate in 2013.

Small-business owners are usually optimistic by nature, however, with these pessimistic results, regarding the future of their businesses, it could indicate that the weakening economy is continuing.