A new national survey, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices, found that 71 percent of small business owners say the recent rise in Covid-19 cases due to the Omicron variant has negatively impacted their business’s revenue. Thirty-seven percent say their business has been forced to temporarily close or scale back operations due to the recent rise in cases.

DATA from that same survey found that the most significant challenge facing small business owners is the labor shortage, with 87 percent of those hiring finding it difficult to recruit qualified candidates for open positions. Because of the labor hardships, 97 percent of small businesses say the shortages are impacting their bottom line, reflecting a 17 percent increase from September 2021.

A recent NiceRx survey found that New Hampshire is the 10th most charitable state in the U.S. There are 195 active charities (per 100,000 people) in NH, with over 19,000 online searches for volunteering/charity opportunities (per 100,000 people) over the course of the past 12 months. Mississippi ranked the least charitable state in the U.S.

BASED on a Pew Research Center survey, the pandemic has been associated with a widening gender gap in the U.S. workforce. Research found that the number of women ages 25 and older in the labor force has fallen 1.3 percent since the third quarter of 2019, similar to a 1.1 percent decline of men in the labor force.

ACCORDING to that same survey, women with a high school education have left the workforce at a decline of 6 percent since the third quarter of 2019, whereas similarly educated men has fallen only 1.8 percent. The number of both men and women workers with at least a bachelor’s degree has increased 2.7 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively, from 2019 to 2021.