Recession bottoming out in Connecticut?

(NECN: Brian Burnell, Hartford, Conn.) – Looking for good news in the midst of bad numbers. That’s the story in Connecticut where the Secretary of State says the recession may be bottoming out. As world continues to struggle with the recession everyone looks to numbers as they try to predict the future. Connecticut’s Secretary of State, Susan Bysiewicz, says the bottom may be here. Her office tracks business startups and failures. 2008 was the worst year on record with 13-thousand-500 businesses declaring bankruptcy. The first half of 2009 was even worse as 6-thousand-9-hundred-44 business closed their doors. All the news is not bad, though. Susan Bysiewicz, D-CT Secretary of the State: There is a glimmer of hope and it is that in second quarter we had slightly fewer business failures compared to the first. Hopefully that is a sign that our business failures are bottoming out and that we will be on an upswing. Also in the hopeful category… the number of new businesses opening their doors. There were almost 7-thousand of those in the first half of 2009. Most of them are small businesses which, Byciewicz points out, provide the majority of the jobs in the state. Susan Bysiewicz, D-CT Secretary of the State: Gone are the days when large companies were responsible for huge numbers of jobs. 90-percent of the new jobs created in Connecticut over the last 2 decades have come from businesses with fewer than 50 employees and 3-quarters of the businesses that are generating jobs are between 3 and 9 employees. One thing that’s crucial to starting a business is credit. Its been called the lifeblood of business. The Connecticut Business and Industry Association is a pro-business lobbying group. They just completed a study, a survey, of how much credit is out there for business. The news on that front is not good. The CBIA/TD Banknorth credit availability survey shows almost half of business people, 47-percent, rate the availability of credit as average. But nearly as many, 46-percent, call it fair or poor… and 42-percent expect further deterioration. Peter Gioa, CBIA Economist: The current numbers are as bad as we’ve seen since starting the survey in 2000. Peter Gioia is an economist with CBIA. He says a look inside the numbers is revealing. Peter Gioa, CBIA Economist: One of the challenges we’re seeing is the companies trying to access money are not getting all they need. It seems like firms that are looking for 250-thousand or less are pretty much getting that. But for 250-thousand or more its a challenge. He says those firms need to look to more than one bank or government sources to fill their credit needs.