Businesses Tell Us About Recovery, Hiring and Buying Local

Each of the 341 participants in the BOSS Survey were asked:
The pandemic began in March 2020. Compared with late 2019, how much has your business revenue and profit recovered?

Of course, businesses that failed since 2019 are no longer around to answer the BOSS Survey.

Companies that said they had hired people in the last year were asked
which best describes their hiring process:

Each respondent was asked:
How often, if at all, do you choose local suppliers, even if the cost is 10% or more higher than other suppliers?

Survey methodology

Hawai‘i Business Magazine contracts with Anthology Research to conduct the BOSS Survey and 808 Poll twice a year.

In the BOSS Survey of local business owners and senior executives – conducted by phone and online – the sample of companies surveyed is stratified based on number of employees. Businesses with one to nine employees are designated as “very small” and those with 10 to 49 employees are designated as “small.” Medium-sized firms are those with 50 to 99 employees; companies with 100 or more employees are classified as “large.”

A total of 341 random interviews were conducted from April 15 to June 30 on the four biggest islands. The data is weighted to reflect the proper proportions of each company size based on its number of employees as reported by the Hawai‘i Department of Labor.

A sample of this size has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.31 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

A secondary goal was to interview businesses that derive relatively significant proportions of their revenue from the construction industry. A total of 72 were surveyed in this segment.

In the 808 Poll of the general public, 410 online surveys were conducted from April 11 to 30. Respondents were screened to ensure they were at least 18 years old and full-time residents of Hawai‘i.

The margin of error for a sample of this size is plus or minus 4.84 percentage points with a 95% confidence level. The data is weighted to reflect population estimates of adults in Hawai‘i based on ethnicity.

Want your voice in the next BOSS Survey?

If you are the owner or a senior executive at a business operating in Hawai‘i and want to provide your responses for the next BOSS Survey, email stevep@hawaiibusiness.com.