Small businesses have taken big hits in the last couple of
years.
In this week's Deep Dive, News 12's Kristie Reeter looks at
the impacts that small businesses have on many aspects of our economy
statewide.
Caleb Silver, with Investopedia, says they track small
business employment by looking at hours worked. They look at the number of
punch ins and punch outs by hourly employees at small businesses using data
from Homebase, which is a data and analytics company.
New York state has suffered the most in terms of small
business revenue and employment amid the pandemic. Working hours for small
business employees is down 28.2% since pre-pandemic levels.
"Small businesses are crucial in New York State. There
are over 2.3 million small businesses across the entire state, that is 99.3% of
all businesses in the state, employing some 4.1 million workers so that's a lot
of folks," says Silver.