2023 Santa Cruz County Business Survey Results

Every 2-3 years, Santa Cruz Works (SCW) conducts a survey of local businesses to understand their challenges. This year, we carried out our survey in June. Out of an estimated 500 tech-related companies in our county, representing our Total Addressable Market (TAM), we reached out to 135. From those, we garnered 65 responses. A college statistics student has estimated a margin of error of around 2.95% with a 95% confidence level. This suggests that our survey results provide a fairly representative snapshot of the county's perspective.

We summarize the results as follows:

• 96.8% of the responses were from businesses in Santa Cruz County. 

• 37% were software-based companies.

• 34.3% were service-based companies providing technical solutions.

• 11.4% are AI companies - which was almost non-existent 3 years ago.

• Only 24% of employees are required to be in the office, vs 45% in our 2020 survey.  

• Hybrid and remote is the new norm.

• Fewer than 34% commute to work.  In 2020, >50% commuted. In 2017, >80% commuted to work.  

• 15% of the companies were severely impacted by the pandemic. 

• The top most challenging business issues were affordable housing, cost of living, and access to skilled workers.

• Most of the businesses were forecasting 2023 revenue to be flat vs 2022.

To learn more, attend our monthly CEO Works Luncheon on September 27 to participate in a roundtable discussion with city leadership about business challenges.