Screenshot taken from the 2017 LB City Gov’t Performance Scorecard.
From the College of Business Administration (CBA) at Cal State Long Beach, the 2017 LB City Government Performance Scorecard was released, a survey conducted every two years to rate the job performance of Long Beach City government officials, departments and neighborhood business districts in supporting small business in Long Beach.
The CBA-Long Beach Small Business Monitor seeks to reflect the expectations and desires of local small businesses for the knowledge of the greater Long Beach community. This year’s findings are compared to 2015’s results, showing a more positive response from business owners in terms of whether they felt supported by their city officials and institutions.
“Overall today, a majority of small business owners and managers rate Long Beach City institutions as doing a good/very good job in supporting small business,” stated the report. “Job performance ratings for all institutions are higher today than in 2015. Most positive ratings and the largest gains are accorded to Mayor Garcia, followed by LB City Departments, BIDS and the LB City Council.”
The results, which you can read find here, are based on a probability sampling—any method of sampling using a form of random selection—of 300 small businesses employing two to 50 workers, while the average size of the businesses who were surveyed had nine employees.
Three factors drive the recent positive job performance ratings, said Study Director Scott Flexo, of the Department of Marketing within the CAB. The first, a generally “more positive feeling about the local economy and prospects for their own small business,” as deduced from the 2017 Small Business Expectations Index, a separate annual report, which you can read here, also conducted by the CBA-Long Beach Small Business Monitor.
The Expectations Index from the 2017 survey is the highest yet measured at 65.2, indicating local small business owners and managers showing the “highest level of business optimism since recording began five years ago,” stated the report.
The second factor eliciting a positive response, found in this year’s LB City Government Performance Scorecard, is “increased awareness of the work done by local city officials, departments, agencies and business associations on behalf of small business,” and the third, “belief among a larger share that the City is doing a better job in supporting small businesses now than two years ago,” Flexo said.
On the importance of surveying small businesses, as opposed to businesses employing more than 50 people, Flexo said that according to the US Census, “64 percent of new private sector jobs are with small businesses, representing more than 50 percent of all employment in the City.”
“A majority of new jobs created and total employment in Long Beach is in a small business making this economic sector an extremely important one for employment and business in Long Beach,” Flexo said. “A majority of small businesses are classified as women and minority owned businesses.”
For more information and past survey results, visit the College of Business Administration website here.