Statewide, Numbers Down 21 percent
Bend new business registrations dropped off in April, according to the newest figures from the Bend Entrepreneur Report, a monthly service from Bend business attorneys EagerLaw PC. With 260 new business registrations, April saw the lowest Bend numbers of 2017 to date. In January, new Bend business registrations came in at 325, followed by 297 in February and 328 in March.
In terms of percentages, Bend new business registrations dropped off by 21 percent in April—a figure that was mirrored in Portland and in Oregon as a whole. Among Oregon’s most populated cities, Medford and Salem saw similar dips in new business registrations, at 19 percent and 20 percent, respectively, while Hillsboro took the hardest hit at 39 percent fewer new registrations in April than in March.
Bend’s ratio of new businesses registered per 100,000 population exceeded the state average for the fourth consecutive month, more than doubling the state figure. Bend’s April rate was 298.80 new businesses registered per 100,000 population, while the state average was 123.46 per 100,000. In fact, with the exception of Warm Springs, every city in Central Oregon exceeded the average Oregon ratio of new businesses registered per 100,000 population in April.
Bend once again saw more new business registrations than any other city in the state, except for Portland. But at 204.01 new business registrations per 100,000 people, Portland trailed Bend’s rate of 298.80.
“Although new Bend business registrations hit a bit of a slump in April, they were still created at a rate higher than that of the rest of the state. That has been the case every month since we began tracking new business registrations in January of this year, and it’s encouraging to see that even as Central Oregon registrations fell off, our region continued to outperform the rest of Oregon,” stated EagerLaw PC founder and Bend business attorney Jeff Eager. “Because this is the first year we’ve tracked this data, we cannot say for certain whether this is a seasonal change. It may be that entrepreneurs start more businesses at the beginning of the year, and they’ve gotten it out of their systems by April. Also, April is a shorter month, and most people file their taxes in April, leaving less time for starting new ventures.”
EagerLaw analyzes Oregon Secretary of State business registration data to prepare the Bend Entrepreneur Report. The Report is released monthly to local media and via Facebook Live at the EagerLaw PC page, where the firm also spotlights local business achievements and provides information of use to Bend businesses.
