By Erin Delmore
Correspondent
Ask Away: In the five years that I’ve been in Bradley Beach I’ve watched some surrounding towns really boom. Are women driving economic growth around the Jersey shore?
“I’ve noticed a lot of the young, hip vibe has definitely been run more by young women. All the clothing shops, gift shops, even the restaurants that have popped up,” Brigitte McGuire, owner of Intentional B Gift Shop, asked.
To answer her question we reached out to the State Chamber of Commerce, the Treasury Department’s Division of Revenue, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners and the Shore Women Business Network, just to name a few.
Then we gathered Brigitte, plus area business owners, Nicole Kienlen, owner of Paws & Anchor, a pet grooming service and shop, graphic designer Krista Sperber and restaurateur and retailer Marilyn Schlossbach.
It’s hard to point to an exact answer, and that’s because most people rely on Census Bureau data, and the census is only taken every ten years. So we don’t have great numbers, but we have data from 2010 and from 2000. However, there was actually a study put out in 2014 by American Express that used the gross domestic product of the country, the state and then at the municipal level to extrapolate for those years in between. They found that there has been a dramatic rise in women-owned businesses all across the country.
Between 1997 and 2014, the number of women-owned businesses in the country rose by 68 percent. That’s actually twice the growth rate for companies owned by men, and nearly one and a half times the growth rate for all companies.
In New Jersey, women-owned businesses increased by 48 percent over those 15 years. According to the American Express report, there were around 230,000 women-owned businesses in the state last year that employ around 260,000 people, injecting a cool $45 billion into the economy.
Marilyn said her industry is male-dominated. She owns four restaurants and a catering company in Asbury Park and Normandy Beach.
“I think the problem that women have is that sometimes we feel pigeon-holed because of society or the past,” she said. “I never looked at it that way. I think I got where I got because I never looked back or looked around.”
She says she encourages her female employees to do the same.
Many of the people we spoke to said we run this mentoring conference, and we had a meeting two weeks ago. One organization said they had an event where 400 people turned out for one of their conferences on women-owned businesses, mentorship and growth, and the year before it had been 200.
That same group, the Small Business Development Center, shared data on Monmouth and Ocean Counties. They said the number of women-owned businesses increased by five percent last year, and by three percent the two years prior to that.
However, growing a small business in New Jersey isn’t without its challenges. Nicole, Owner of Paws & Anchor, says it’s the taxes that pose a problem.
“Workman’s comp is phenomenal. It costs so much. I try to explain it this way: For every $100 that I want to pay one of my people, I have to pay $33 on top of that. It’s another third,” she said. “So they’re paying taxes for working. I’m paying taxes because I earn money, and then I’m also paying another third of that, of what I paid them, to worker’s comp. There’s so much taken out.”
McGuire, who asked the question, said she learned, “that there are so many other women here in business who face the same challenges, who want the same connection with each other for inspiration, for knowledge, for, let’s do this together, for community. The numbers were pretty astonishing and to see women businesses in New Jersey specifically. To know those numbers and to know what the next generation is going to naturally be is pretty amazing.”
While we were here on Main Street in Bradley Beach answering Brigitte’s Ask Away question, Nicole came up with another. She wants to know who Captain William Kidd, the pirate, was, and where he buried his treasure in Bradley Beach. You can vote for Nicole’s question or any other on AskAway.