Small Business Owners Are Retiring, And Millennials May Not Fill The Gap On America's Main Street
From Forbes
A local hardware store in Worcester, Massachusetts recently announced that it was going out of business. This wouldn’t be big news, except Elwood Adams Hardware has been around since the Articles of Confederation. Dating back to 1782, it is (or was) one of the oldest hardware stores in the United States—continually open for 235 years under various owners.
The store’s employees, most of whom have worked there for decades, gave multiple reasons for the business’s closing. First, the pressure of Internet competition; second, and related to the first, a lack of loyalty from younger customers; and finally, the owner was ready to retire, and couldn’t find anyone to whom he could sell the business. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses account for 48% of national employment in the United States. In number, they represent 99.7% of all businesses in the country. Small business owners, some with staffs of 500 employees, others toiling alone in a home office, and plenty more in-between, are the stewards of an enormous segment of the American economy.
The store’s employees, most of whom have worked there for decades, gave multiple reasons for the business’s closing. First, the pressure of Internet competition; second, and related to the first, a lack of loyalty from younger customers; and finally, the owner was ready to retire, and couldn’t find anyone to whom he could sell the business. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses account for 48% of national employment in the United States. In number, they represent 99.7% of all businesses in the country. Small business owners, some with staffs of 500 employees, others toiling alone in a home office, and plenty more in-between, are the stewards of an enormous segment of the American economy.
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