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Business & Tech

Minding Our Business: Confidence is Up, Hiring's Not

Farmington Chamber of Commerce president reflects on the business climate and outlook.

Farmington’s Chamber of Commerce reflects the outcome of a recent survey published by the US Chamber of Commerce. In the first quarter Small Business Outlook Survey from March, some of the key findings indicate that while our business confidence is improving, it hasn’t impacted hiring trends - only 20% of responders actually hired in the past year. 52% of responders claim over regulation is a top threat to growing their business. Taxation, regulation, and legislation from Washington make it harder for their business to hire more
employees. Nearly 3/4ths of the small businesses surveyed claim the new health care bill is responsible for their lack of hiring.

Governor Malloy and the State of CT launched a 2 year marketing campaign in January 2012 to stimulate business development and tourism and committed $22 million toward marketing and advertising. Have you noticed the “Still Revolutionary” campaign? What is revolutionary was the Governor’s dedication to this project this year as no dollars were allocated for this effort in 2010 or 2011.

Farmington businesses can benefit by this effort as we are ideally located along our beautiful and scenic Farmington River and have easy highway access for shopping, hotels and restaurants. If Farmington businesses piggy back on the state’s efforts, we will multiply the benefits. The more our townspeople support local businesses, the better our economy will be. New entities, like Jackson Laboratories, will make us stronger also.

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The Farmington Chamber of Commerce exists to promote business and economic development in Farmington by developing a stronger voice for our members and offering diversified resources and benefits to meet our memberships’ needs. I hope you found this information helpful. For further discussion, feel free to contact me, Carol Presutti, at president@farmingtonchamber.com.

Carol Presutti is president of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce.

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