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Surviving the Peaks and Valleys of Seasonal Small Business in a Rural Ski Town

By Small Biz Survival

A group of skiers in colorful outfits on snowy slopes. Banners in Japanese script are in the foreground.

Part of our Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration Nov 13-19, 2023. Guest post by Mike Humphrey, Japan Skiing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why my parents decided skiing would be our family sport. They were not avid skiers, and we didn’t live in a ski […]

November 17, 2023 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, global, management, POV, rural, tourism, workforce Tagged With: building a business, entrepreneurship, GEW, Global Entrepreneurship Week, good management practices, guest post, hospitality business, management, rural, seasonal business, small business success

Eye-popping Main Street employment stat

By Becky McCray

A sign says "Discover Downtown Westbrook, a Main Street America community." Diverse people are walking on sidewalks in a New England historic downtown business district.

Main Street districts employ almost as many people as Amazon Hannah White, Interim President and CEO of Main Street America, dropped this little statistic at the Main Street Now National Conference in Boston in 2023. Designated Main Street Districts in the US include over 1.1 million jobs, almost as many people as Amazon. Amazon’s approximately […]

July 13, 2023 Filed Under: economic development, rural, workforce Tagged With: employment, Main Street America, rural data, small towns, statistics, workforce

Reaching “at risk” kids for local jobs

By Becky McCray

Workforce is a challenge for 2/3rds of rural small businesses. Source: Survey of Rural Challenges, 2021 One under-utilized source of workers: At-risk students Tony Guidroz, from San Saba, Texas, told me he was shocked when he found out there were 702 kids in the local school district, and more than 400 were considered “at-risk” either […]

July 15, 2022 Filed Under: economic development, rural, workforce, youth Tagged With: at-risk students, blue collar jobs, career fair, workforce, youth

3 Major factors in rural remote work: incentives, flexible workspaces, and a sense of community

By Becky McCray

A diverse group of people with laptops sitting around a table, coworking.

Remote work will dominate the future small town workforce Your current residents Your current small town residents will increasingly work from home or remotely. Gallup looked at jobs that could be done remotely and the locations where workers actually did them. Four times as many workers will work remotely going forward, compared to the number […]

June 6, 2022 Filed Under: community, economic development, rural, trends, workforce, youth Tagged With: community, coworking, internet, remote work, resident recruitment, rural, zoom towns

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