It isn’t every day you get a qualified look at how a whole nation’s small and medium businesses are recovering. A new report released by the provider of accounting software used in America by many SMEs is showing us just how the SME community is returning to normal following a historic pandemic.
We all know that COVID-19 has impacted the economy across America, but the way in which the invaluable community of business owners and entrepreneurs are recovering and managing its impact has been left to speculation for some time. Now, this new report and the data it contains is helping to tell a clearer story.
Returning to normal
With almost five billion Dollars lost in April of last year alone among small businesses when compared to past revenue, it’s fair to say that the impact of the pandemic has been staggering. With other reports showing that as many as one-third of companies have gone under during the lockdown and economic turmoil, the past year has challenged SMEs in a way many were entirely unprepared for.
The writing, however, is on the wall in the best possible way. With vaccines rolling out across the nation and many states opening up once more, we are seeing in this report that there is a genuine surge of businesses recovering their income. And with almost every business in America being classified as a small business, this pillar of the nation’s business community is critical, to say the least. For many of these, business funding suppliers are helping to make recovery possible.
Now, we are seeing in this report that over 60% of industries have seen a marked improvement in their revenue in March of this year. At last, the business community seems to be emerging out the other side of a dark place in terms of America’s economy.
An uneven recovery
Despite the good news, there is an expected variance in how different industries are recovering. While this is expected to a degree, this phenomenon is exacerbated in America by different states and regions having greater or lesser economic power and resilience.
Industries like the finance and insurance sectors are, for instance, surging ahead of others in terms of economic recovery in March of this year. Agriculture, fishing and hunting, utilities and building or gardening materials are similarly performing well, outpacing slower sectors such as crop production.
The danger of uneven recovery in America is real. Often referred to as a ‘K-shaped’ recovery, the different pace of improvement across the nation can lead to a destabilised and delicate return to normalcy. This can be particularly dangerous for a nation that may see a resurgence of new variants of the COVID-19 virus. Inconsistencies in vaccination rollouts and response may also be a factor in how even or uneven America’s recovery will prove to be.
Rural and urban
Interestingly, we have seen a different result than many expected in how urban and rural regions of America have started to recover. Reports now indicate that companies that operate in dense urban areas such as cities on either the east or west coast have been impacted by the pandemic more strongly than those that are in lesser-populated rural regions. We are also seeing trends in how key industries in each of these types of areas are recovering, with recreation-based companies being some of the hardest hit, while the housing industry has performed admirably as mortgage banking revenue surges.
Light at the end of the year
Despite the uncertainty and delicacy of America’s recovery from the pandemic, the trend is undeniable and plain to see. With such commendable work done by the world’s scientists, the nation is now deep into its rollout of vaccines that will help us all return to some form of normal after such a unique challenge in our collective history.