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SMEs see ray of hope

May 20 2009

Signs of hope Signs of hope

A large proportion of small businesses believe the worst of the recession is behind them.

In a poll conducted by SmallBusiness.co.uk, more than half said that trade was starting to improve or had begun to plateau.

Andy Percival, owner of The Property Search group, says that although business hasn’t started to get better, it is no longer in a ‘freefall’ situation. ‘Last year was so scary it felt like things were going backwards every month. We had to make two sets of redundancies and put people on short-time working. Now it’s not as bad,’ he says.

‘It probably won't be until spring next year that things will actually improve. However, other people I speak to in the industry agree that things are not as scary as they were at the end of last year,’ adds Percival.

Of the 110 respondents, 48 per cent said that business was getting worse.

This follows a report by the British Retail Consortium that said April saw an increase in sales of 4.6 per cent compared with last year.

Comments [1]
Comment by Mike beardshall
Saturday 23rd May 2009

Hi there, I have to say, your poll confirms our own findings. SMEs are starting to climb back out of the recession although tentatively the signs are still looking positive. If you are interested I would be grateful if you could have a look at my own blog on our own findings and similarities: http://blogs.sixninjas.com/mike/?p=26 I have added your blog to my RSS to track your progress, many thanks for a good read. Mike


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