While just over half of small businesses in the East Valley say they’ve made no changes to their employee count during the Covid-19 pandemic and 14% have hired new staff, 40% have reduced employees' hours or instituted hiring freezes, furloughs and layoffs to reduce expenses, a new survey shows.
Also, after recent shutdown orders and with many people still wary about going out during a time when the coronavirus is spreading at one of the fastest rates in the nation, acquiring and retaining customers came in as the top concern by far among survey respondents.
The survey released this week was the fourth conducted by the East Valley Chambers of Commerce Alliance since the pandemic took hold in Arizona in March.
The intent behind it is to gauge the economic effects of the crisis so the organization can determine how best to focus its efforts.
