Many Rhode Island businesses are approaching the coming year as smart drivers do a blinking yellow light. Proceed, but with caution, keeping both eyes open for what might be coming around the corner.
“People are kind of just holding [back] a little,” said Lauren Slocum, CEO and president of the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce. “They’re trying to be optimistic. But they’re not diving in with their eyes closed.”
Data from PBN’s summer 2025 business survey confirms the caution and concern that many business owners have for the economy and the effects tariffs and other federal policy changes will have on it.
About 20% of respondents expect their company to perform worse in the year ahead, a significant increase from the 4% who felt that way a year ago. That pessimism contributed to less than half of respondents, 48%, feeling good about their own business prospects.
Those results mark only the fourth time in the last 17 years that less than half of respondents were confident in their own businesses. A decade ago, that number hovered around 80%.
Edward M. Mazze, distinguished university professor of business administration at the University of Rhode Island, says business decisions to hire or expand are increasingly affected by political and economic concerns at the local, national and global levels.
Tariffs have been among the biggest challenges, though some were quicker to pivot than others.
“We were able to adapt,” said Ward’s Manufacturing LLC co-founder Kelly Ward. “We realized right away that we need to be looking for more customers.”
(SUBS 6th paragraph to correct Mazze job title.)