See Results The Borough has more than 8,000 businesses and 80% of them have 5 employees or less. Nearly half of those small businesses have reported that revenue was down by 50% since the pandemic hit.
Presentation
These are among the results of the recently released Economic Impacts Survey that was presented by Assemblymember Nowers. She said, "It is small businesses that have been left behind. There has been federal stimulus checks for individuals, and bigger businesses have the capacity to take advantages of those programs. We have a lot of small businesses in the Borough, 80% are 5 employees or less. We knew that CoViD was affecting them, we all had anecdotal stories to tell, but this was our opportunity to show how they were being impacted."
Questions
The Survey asked questions like: How may employees do you have? How reliant are you on visitors from outside the Borough? Hoave you applied for aid yet? Has you business been affected so far? WHat do you expect if things don't turn around?
Results
See Results The results have also been released to the public in an interactive dashboard. Results are presented as pie charts, and are filterable by industry and zip code. 45% had reported that revenue was down by 50% so far, and the most significant affects were tourism, retail, childcare, food service. But the effects are across the Borough and across industries.
Grants
Small business that were left out of other economic assistance may be eligible for a grant through the Alaska Cares Grant Program.