New Jersey business owners provide perspective in annual NJBIA survey

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The New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) will release its 66th annual Business Outlook Survey on December 2nd.

The annual analysis is conducted in collaboration with Englewood-based Signet Research and collects responses from more than 600 New Jersey business owners and executives. Most respondents represent small businesses.

The outlook comes amid New Jersey’s 2025 gubernatorial race to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy.

This week the NJBIA is hosting its annual Public Policy Forum on December 4th in Woodbridge. Five gubernatorial candidates will take part in the event. Republican candidates Jack Ciattarelli and Bill Spadea and Democratic candidates Steve Fulop, Sean Spiller and Steve Sweeney will participate in a discussion about the state’s economy and business landscape. The survey results are also discussed.

“As we face a landmark Election Day and the upcoming 2025 gubernatorial and general elections, this event promises to provide some very timely and dynamic discussions about the status and direction of New Jersey’s economy and business climate,” said NJBIA- President and CEO Michele Siekerka. “We really look forward to hearing from all our panelists and presenters about what will be a lively and informative program.”

NJBIA survey respondents were asked to list their top three actions that the next governor could have the greatest positive impact on their business.

They were:

• Reduce property taxes: Listed by all respondents, with 23% listing it as their top priority and more than 53% listing it as their top three
• Reduce health insurance costs: named in the top three by 51%, including 15% who listed it at the top
• Reducing corporate taxes: 40% made it into the top three, including 16% who listed it first

“The fact that New Jersey businesses want a reduction in property taxes isn’t necessarily surprising, but the idea that policymakers never seem to include them in the conversation for property tax relief is,” Siekerka said. “New Jersey businesses have been excluded from any property tax relief under the ANCHOR and Stay NJ programs, despite paying nearly half of the state’s property taxes annually. A new governor clearly has the opportunity to endear himself to our job creators by providing them with some much-needed property tax savings.”

Key findings

Impact on inflation

• 46% significantly
• 42% moderate
• 9% hardly
• 2% not at all

Staffing

employment

• About 20% more hires were made this year, up from 23% in 2023, while new hires fell another 20%, resulting in a net hearing count of zero in 2024
• In 2025, 28% predicted an increase in employment; 0% predicted fewer new hires with a net positive hiring outlook of +18%; 62% said they will stay about the same

Sales

• 39% saw an increase in sales this year
• 48% predicted an increase in sales in 2025 – more than the 43% increase forecast last year
• 19% forecast lower sales next year, giving a positive net sales forecast of +29% (versus +17% last year).

Wins

• Only 32% reported profits for 2024
• 45% reported a loss this year
• 40% believe they will make a profit in 2025, while 25% expect to lose money, for a net profit of +15% (versus +9% in 2024).

Economic climate in New Jersey

• 34% said they were experiencing a slowdown
• 15% expansion
• 8% said their industry is moving from a slowdown to a recovery
• 5% said their industry was moving from expansion to contraction
• 38% said business conditions in their industry remained the same
• 57% said they have no plans to expand
• 25% said they would expand to another state
• 14% would expand in the Garden State
• 5% who said they would expand in New Jersey and another state

Economic outlook

• 37% said New Jersey’s economy is fair
• 31% poor (13% more than last year)
• 28% good
• 4% excellent
• For the first six months of 2025, 23% said the economy would do better
• 26% worse (for a forecast of -3% – an increase from the last two polls, which saw -31% in 2024 and -36% in 2023).

challenges

• The cost of doing business was the biggest challenge for the fourth year in a row – 23% named it at the top of their top four, followed by the availability of skilled labor (15%), the cost of health insurance (14%) and property taxes (13th). ). %)

Affordability concerns

• Only 4% said the governor and lawmakers have done enough to improve business affordability in the last year, while 74% said no (68% last year); 79% said business affordability had declined in the state over the last five years, while just 4% said it had improved over that time, and 17% said business affordability had improved in the last five years remained the same for five years

“Unfortunately, corporate affordability does not appear to be gaining significant traction among policymakers,” Siekerka said. “We hope a new regime in Trenton recognizes the extreme cost of doing business in the state as a whole and considers measures to improve this sobering trend.”

NJBIA’s full annual business outlook survey can be found here.