N.Y. small business leaders brighten six-month outlook, survey says

New York’s small business owners are more hopeful about their companies’ prospects than they were in the spring, according to a recently released survey.

The American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor, which comes out every spring and fall, shows 50 percent of small business owners in New York have a positive outlook on the economy and their business prospects over the next six months. The result is up from 38 percent who had such an outlook in the spring.

Small business owners in New York have roughly the same projections as owners across the nation, where 49 percent are optimistic. But they trailed business owners in the Northeast — defined in the survey as Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — where 58 percent of proprietors profess a positive outlook.

Back in New York, 83 percent of small business owners plan to grow their firms in the next six months, which is up from 71 percent in the spring. And 35 percent anticipate hiring over six months, similar to the 32 percent who expressed hiring plans in the spring.

More than half of New York’s small business owners, 55 percent, expect to make capital investments in six months. That’s up from 47 percent this spring.

The British firm Echo Research conducted the survey for American Express OPEN, which is a payment-card issuer for small businesses in the United States. The survey defined small businesses as having under 100 employees.

Echo Research conducted the survey by telephone between Aug. 23 and Sept. 21, and American Express OPEN released it Oct. 18. Surveyors sampled 839 company managers and owners nationwide, giving the survey a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com