A new study carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has revealed a drop in business confidence among Britain\u2019s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).<\/p>\n
According to the report, business confidence has been hit by political uncertainty spurred on by the surprise General Election result, and financial fears stemming from ever-rising operating costs.<\/p>\n
It adds that more than half (52 per cent) of SMEs are currently concerned that a slowing economy could act as a barrier to their potential growth in the near future.<\/p>\n
Mike Cherry, national chairman of the FSB, said that the Government would need to offer more support to small businesses in a bid to create a more \u201cbalanced economy\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cSmall businesses were feeling pessimistic even before the General Election was called.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, alongside increasing inflationary pressure, a business rates revaluation and rising labour costs, they have a whole new wave of political uncertainty to contend with.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u00a3300m hardship fund announced at the Spring Budget to help those worst affected offered a glimmer of hope, but is yet to materialise.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that consumer-facing businesses were \u201creally starting to feel the squeeze\u201d and that many were \u201cstill reeling\u201d from April\u2019s business rates hike.<\/p>\n
He also said: \u201cMany small firms that operate in the retail and hospitality sectors depend on EU 27 workers. Ensuring these vital employees have the right to remain needs to be a first port of call once Brexit talks launch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new study carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has revealed a drop in business confidence among Britain\u2019s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1906,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions\/1906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}