Business issues affect ability to thrive

Health insurance is the overriding concern, cited as the No. 1 issue by 24 percent of respondents. Health insurance is in the top three concerns for 50 percent of readers.

Empire Bank’s health insurance rates increased almost 10 percent for 2005.

“I think we felt that it was a manageable increase, but we foresee that it’s going to be a continuing issue,” said Mike Williamson, Empire Bank’s president and CEO. “It’s a major cost of doing business for us, (but) there’s nothing unique to us compared to anybody else.”

Williamson said that Empire Bank pays 77 percent of employee health insurance premiums. To handle rate increases, employee copayments will increase and deductibles will rise.

Labor

Labor skills are in the top three concerns for 45 percent of readers.

Some service businesses are struggling to find professional, steady employees.

Ivan Eftink, co-owner of Bug Zero, said, “We’re not looking for PhDs or people that have dedicated their life to preparing to be a bug man, so we get a tremendous variety” of applicants.

The skills job applicants lack aren’t always vocational. “A lot of it is just common sense and initiative,” Eftink said. “If there’s trash in the parking lot, pick it up. Don’t walk past it every day for a week.”

Forty-four percent of readers rank labor availability in their top three concerns.

Peter Klock, plant manager at Fleischmann’s Vinegar in Nixa, said that the company rarely hires, increasing automation to keep the headcount as low as possible. “We’ve probably doubled in (production) since 1999 or so and probably added one person,” he said. “We do so little hiring I can be choosy. I’d rather hire nobody than somebody that’s under-qualified.”

His most recent new hire will start in January. “It was murder trying to find someone qualified just to be an operator here,” Klock said.

Taxes

While 10 percent of respondents list taxes as their top concern, 27 percent rank taxes in their top three concerns.

Realtor Don Jacques, president of The Jacques Co., is confident that President Bush and Congress will keep taxes under control.

“They’re talking again about making changes … but if a president and congress headed the wrong direction, it could hurt our business. And when I say ‘our business,’ it’s not our industry specifically. It’s the buyers and sellers. It’s the investors,” Jacques said. “When those people hurt, then I hurt.” It doesn’t affect me directly, but it affects my clients because they’re not interested in buying or selling if the tax laws are bad.”

Capital

Access to capital is the top concern of 13 percent of readers, and in the top three concerns of 19 percent.

Fleishmann’s Vinegar has survived the lean years, yet still ranks access to capital as a high priority.

“We went through many years where capital was tight. Now it’s very loose. Now we’re getting everything we need to function and grow here,” said Klock. “We’re growing so much every year (that) if we didn’t have our capital, we wouldn’t be in trouble (but) we just couldn’t continue our growth.”

Access to capital isn’t a personal concern for Jacques’ business, but finding money for clients to buy real estate is an issue.

“The whole housing segment has to have that availability of capital. … I’ve been at this 30 years and I’ve been in there when we couldn’t borrow except at 18 percent. I know what it does to our business when you can’t borrow money. We barely squeaked by during those years,” Jacques said.