So the NBER says it's official: we're in a recession, and have been for a year. The other week I posted about how some types of small businesses do worse in recessions than others. But do any do better?
Luckily we have researchers like Scott Shane of Case Western Reserve to examine that question. Based on data regarding what businesses grew in the last major recession in the early 90s, Shane identifies four industries:
- Banking, such as mortgage loan brokers, financial transactions processing, commodity contracts dealers
- Accident and health insurance
- Offices of health practitioners (like speech therapists)
- Business consulting
As Shane goes on to say, finance-related (and especially mortgage-related) activity is likely to fare not as well in this recession as in the previous one, for obvious reasons. But there's little reason to think those other industries wouldn't fare relatively well today.
US News' Best Small Businesses feature explores some of the specific things you can do in these industries, and why they thrive in recessions. Take business consulting, for example--many businesses are looking to cut costs by outsourcing to people what they used to do themselves. When people hear the word "outsourcing" they think "call centers in India," but really, many of these outsourced services go to entrepreneurs in the US.
There is also growing demand for consultants who can help businesses with the expert knowledge needed to get involved in overseas markets. For more on that, click here.
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