Long Beach Businesses : 1994 Long Beach Business Survey

The 1994 Business Survey was requested by the City of Long Beach to guide and strengthen its business outreach and retention efforts. Long Beach was experiencing a high level of business distress as a result of the 1990 recession and the collapse of aerospace.The survey was sent to 908 companies and received exceptionally strong support from long Beach businesses -- 561 firms returned it to the City for a response rate of 62%. Firms returning the survey add up to more than 10% of all businesses in Long Beach. This is a high level of representation for a survey of this sort and justifies confidence in information developed through this project. The average length of time firms responding to the survey have been in business in Long Beach was 23 years. The median length of time was 18 years. Firms that began business in Long Beach after 1980 were much more likely than firms beginning before 1980 to say they would still choose Long Beach if they were making that decision again today. Part of the explanation for this is that a larger share of older firms are in industry sectors that are now declining in Long Beach.Two closely related questions on the survey asked firms for their bottom-line assessment about whether they perceive Long Beach to be a positive location for business, and whether they would select Long Beach if they were choosing a location for their business today. Businesses rating Long Beach favorably indicate types of industries the City might attract, while businesses giving unfavorable ratings indicate areas where attention may be needed. Overall, 54% of firms say they perceive Long Beach as a positive location for business, and 52% say they would select Long Beach as the location for their business if they were making this decision today. These ratings are closely linked to each other, and rise and fall together depending on industry sector, area of the City, size, and profitability of the firm.Responses by nearly half of Long Beach businesses indicating that they would have preferred to be located in another city indicated the level of economic distress felt by businesses