The Indiana University East Business and Economic Research Center (the BERC) of the School of Business and Economics surveyed regional businesses to research the business and economic pulse in East-Central Indiana.

The 2021 East-Central Indiana Business Survey was completed by businesses in September-October 2021.

This is the sixth year of the survey. The survey is conducted annually as usual in the fall of the reporting year, the findings and outlook derived from the responses of the business operators included in this report do not reflect all the impact of the pandemic on the seven-county region. Since the data was collected, many businesses’ plans have been disrupted or changed due to the pandemic. The hope is that this report will still provide a baseline measurement of what area businesses had anticipated versus the actual challenging situation they are currently facing.

In this survey, seven East-Central Indiana counties were included to provide an overview of the business climate of the regional economy.

The survey was sent to more than 1,000 local business operators in Fayette, Franklin, Henry, Randolph, Rush, Union, and Wayne counties across a wide spectrum of industries including professional services, manufacturing, health care, information technology, retail trade, and banking and financial services. There were 146 participating businesses who completed the survey. Half of the surveyed businesses have operated in their counties for more than 20 years.

The survey was broken down into sections including demographics, performance, expectations, concerns and forecasts for the coming year. A few of the survey highlights indicated that more than half of the businesses in the region experienced an increase in production and business activity than in 2021, and less than one-fifth reported a reduction. Twenty-one percent of the surveys indicated an increase in employment.

When considering expectations for 2022, over 90% of survey participants expect their firms to either increase or maintain the same level of production and business activity. Over half of the businesses anticipate hiring the same number of employees, and more than one third of them expect to add more employees in 2022.

The survey report is available on the BERC website at iue.edu/business/berc/.

This project would not have been successful without the support and contribution of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Group of Connersville and Fayette County, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, Experience Franklin County, Indiana, Inc., the Franklin County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission, and Franklin County Welcome Center, the New Castle-Henry County Chamber of Commerce, the New Castle-Henry County Economic Development Corporation, Randolph County United, the Rush County Chamber of Commerce, the Union County Development Corporation, the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County.

In addition, BERC’s successful application for the Regional Economic Development (RED) Fund from the Indiana University Council for Regional Engagement and Economic Development (CREED) has also enabled the printing of a significant number of copies of this report for distribution to the local offices of economic development efforts in each of the participating counties covered in the report.

During the spring 2022 semester, BERC held a student cover design contest for the 2021 East-Central Indiana Business Survey Report. Gabriel Jones, a fine arts major, was the winner. Deziree Shafer, a recent graduate with her degree in communication studies, and Tianna Hampton, a fine arts major, were finalists. All are from Richmond.

For more information on the East-Central Indiana Business Survey Report, contact the Director of the Business and Economic Research Center and Associate Professor of Finance, Oi Lin (Irene) Cheung, Ph.D., at (765) 973-8497.