Small business founders expect to work longer hours and take fewer days off as they watch their profits slide, a new survey has found.
Businesses are working an average of 51 hour weeks, up three hours per week from the last quarter. They also expect to take fewer days off over the year, with holiday quotas down to an average of 20 days a year from 21 according to a poll from small business support platform Enterprise Nation’s Small Business Barometer, a quarterly survey of SMEs in the UK.
Growth expectations for the next quarter have settled slightly. Just over a third (36%) said they expect to grow in the run up to Christmas, down four per cent on the last quarter. But that followed a 20 per cent drop in growth expectations from Q1 to Q2.
