Hispanic small business owners are confident about their 2019 business outlook, with strong majorities planning for increased revenue, growth and expansion – eclipsing their non-Hispanic counterparts by double-digits on all indicators. According to the third annual Bank of America Hispanic Small Business Owner Spotlight, 79 percent of Hispanic business owners plan to grow their business over the next five years, 24 percentage points higher than non-Hispanic entrepreneurs (55 percent).
Additionally, when asked about their outlook for next 12 months:
“Consistent with years prior, Hispanic small business owners are embracing a significantly more confident outlook toward growth compared to their non-Hispanic counterparts,” said Elizabeth Romero, Small Business Central Division executive, Bank of America. “This optimism, however, does not come without challenges. As Hispanic entrepreneurs look to augment growth plans by hiring, today’s competitive job market has created an especially difficult environment to attract and retain talent.”
More Hispanic entrepreneurs say their business has grown beyond what they originally envisioned when compared to non-Hispanics (34 percent vs. 25 percent). They credit employees, family and community as their primary sources of support and motivation in that success. More Hispanic entrepreneurs also see their businesses as multi-generational assets, with more than one-third intending to pass their business onto their children, compared to less than one-quarter of non-Hispanics.
More than half of Hispanic entrepreneurs look to hire in 2019 – double the rate of non-Hispanic business owners. One potential obstacle, however, is finding qualified talent to fill these roles, with 58 percent of Hispanic entrepreneurs who sought to hire in 2018 reporting the ultra-competitive job market has impacted their ability to hire. As more than half of Hispanic business owners look to hire, they are also more likely than their non-Hispanic peers to report that retaining and hiring employees has become a significant challenge.
Seventy percent of Hispanic entrepreneurs say they have refined their hiring and recruiting approach to better compete in this ultra-competitive job market (vs. 55 percent of non-Hispanic business owners), including:
For a complete, in-depth look at the insights of the nation’s Hispanic small business owners, read the full 2019 Bank of America Hispanic Small Business Owner Spotlight.
GfK Social and Strategic Research conducted the Bank of America Hispanic Business Owner Spotlight survey between August 30 and October 16, 2018 using a pre-recruited online sample of Hispanic and Non-Hispanic small business owners. GfK contacted a national sample of 1,067 small business owners in the United States with annual revenue between $100,000 and $4,999,999 and employing between two and 99 employees, as well as 303 interviews among Hispanic small business owners. The final results were weighted to national benchmark standards for size, revenue, and region, and, for the Hispanic augment, whether the respondents were primarily English-speaking or Spanish-speaking.
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Don Vecchiarello, Bank of America
Phone: 1.980.387.4899
don.vecchiarello@bofa.com