Survey findings and summary
After a two-month survey of over 6,000 small business owners nationwide, Thumbtack.com has released new data showing that small businesses ranked Atlanta #5 overall. The cities' small business owners were also the nation's fifth-most optimistic about their economic prospects for 2012. The only areas where the city struggled were its environmental and zoning regulations.
Some of the key findings for Atlanta include:
- Atlanta earned an 'A+' for its networking programs.
- Southern Georgia is the state's stand-out region, receiving #1 rankings for 11 of the 17 categories rated by small businesses. In contrast, Northern Georgia fails along multiple dimensions, receiving the lowest ranking for a variety of categories - the region is the state's most costly for hiring a new employee and the region's businesses are the most pessimistic about their economic future. Small businesses rated Metro Atlanta as having the state's second-healthiest economy for small businesses, but the region also had the least-friendly health and safety and licensing regulations.
