Small Business Association of Michigan President and CEO, Brian Calley, made a trip to the Copper Country to update local business owners on legislation proposed in Lansing and share findings from the group’s Annual business leaders survey. The SBAM has found that business owners in the state are feeling less confident in their long-term outlook than in years past.

“In running a small business you have to have an attitude like, I’m going to figure this out. This business is going to work. And yet this drop in confidence does, 58 percent is nothing to sneeze at, but it was 70 percent, consistently over 70 percent for quite a long time.” – Brian Calley, President and CEO, Small Business Association of Michigan

The group’s survey also asked business leaders to share their list of priorities for Lansing including expanding the workforce, lowering taxes, improving infrastructure, and removing regulations. The Small Business Association was surprised though to see improving the state’s education system as the highest priority coming from business owners.

“Small business owners are saying, actually of all the things you could be focusing on the thing I’m most concerned about is improving the education system. I think that that’s probably tied to this current concern with the quality of labor. We have to sometimes read into our surveys and the types of responses we are getting from our members. But this idea that quality of labor is a big concern, could probably come from a whole lot of different things. But we do know there is a different level of resiliency among the workforce as compared to before.” – Brian Calley, President and CEO, Small Business Association of Michigan

Calley shared some information on proposed legislation in Lansing, detailing some of the goals behind each bill package. Some of the topics the Small Business Association of Michigan will continue to follow in Lansing include legislation for family medical leave for employees, the use of independent contractors, energy, and local labor laws. Find more information about the Small Business Association of Michigan here. All members of the Keweenaw Chamber of Commerce are joint members of the Small Business Association of Michigan. The SBAM is one of the largest groups of its kind in the nation, with more than 32,000 members.

Keweenaw Chamber of Commerce