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October Sees an Increase in Small Business Optimism

November 3, 2011 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

October was a good month for small business owners as optimism in the industry saw an increase of 20% in the month to top off at 53%. What makes this even more remarkable is that optimism saw record lows in the previous months according to SurePayroll’s monthly Small Business Scorecard. The scorecard includes hiring and wage data for the top 35 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas and surveys national small business owner optimism each month.

The scorecard revealed there continued to be a flat or decreasing hiring on a national level for the month of October, the thirteenth straight month in a row. Hiring totaled a year-to-date decline in hiring of 2.9% though the company did note that this downward turn has been slowing since September. Wages also remained down slightly for the year as well.

In addition to that, the survey also found that small business owners have their minds set on long-term growth and also indicate that the current administration and presidential candidates should be focusing on putting our country’s fiscal affairs in order. Other issues addressed in the optimism survey were that 51% of small business owners reported that the most critical issues related to job growth are budget balancing, reducing the deficit and stabilizing the housing market.

What’s more is that 45% of small business owners also think that some form of flat tax would have a positive impact on hiring, with 44% thinking that a flat tax would have no impact on hiring whatsoever. In addition to that, roughly 11% thought that a flat tax could have a negative effect on hiring.

According to President of SurePoll Michael Alter, “Optimism is like the fuel that drives small businesses. With small business optimism taking such a strong upswing, we can be hopeful that hiring and wage trends may follow. While hiring is down, a closer look at the numbers shows the decline is slowing. And while wages appear flat, they are in fact up just a bit from this time last year. That coupled with rising optimism makes me think next month may be even brighter for small business.”

MSA data from the scorecard has shown that for the seventh consecutive month, the South remains the only positive region in the country for hiring. The South has also experienced minimal month-over-month growth in hiring. The Northeast, Midwest and West stand in direct contrast to this trend as these areas continue to show negative month-over-month growth. Year to date the South is up 0.5% while all the other regions are negative.

In addition to that, the survey also found that small business owners continue to to rely on contractors to meet their needs versus hiring new employees. Contractor use also showed a month-over-month increase of 1.3% . SurePayroll’s Scorecard compiles data from over 30,000 small businesses and exclusively reflects the trends affecting the nation’s so-called “micro businesses”, or those businesses with an average of eight employees.

Source: eWeek.com – Small Business Optimism Jumps 20 Percent in October

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SMBs are Hiring

March 7, 2010 by Sarah Leave a Comment

New data suggests the smallest businesses in the country are beginning to add new jobs and some experts say that’s a great sign for bigger companies. This info comes despite a March 5th report from the Labor Department that suggests the United States is still losing jobs.

Intuit released some information on March 1st that suggests companies with less than 20 employees have been adding new jobs since June 2009. That’s based on the 50,000 customers using their online payroll service. Also, after two years of decline, the average paycheck amount for someone working for a company of less than 100 employees is beginning to stabilize over the last three months, and in some cases, is increasing. This includes data from salary, hourly, and contract workers. That information came out on March 3rd from a company called SurePayroll.

The numbers look like this: since June, employment at small businesses as been growing at 1.1% annual rate. With that information, Intuit suggests 150,000 jobs have been created by companies with fewer than 20 employees since June. That includes 40,000 last month alone. Granted that’s a long way from re-employing the 8.4 million who have lost jobs since December 2007, but it’s still a start and it’s left some people pretty hopeful.

Brian Headd, an economist at the Small Business Administration says this is a potentially good sign. He says that in 2002, recovery began when small businesses began hiring before larger companies did and in some cases when larger companies were still losing jobs. According to census data from 2006, companies of 20 or less employees make up 89% of all businesses and 18% of the private workforce.

Meanwhile, Congress is working on a number of different bills in an effort to put people back to work and one way they’re trying to do that is tax incentives. Last week, the House passed a bill that gives employers who hire people who have been out of work for two months a year free from paying the Social Security payroll tax. John Bishop of Cornell University has proposed a hiring tax credit that he says could will encourage about two million jobs in the next year. But a lot small businesses don’t wait on the government to pass bills before they hire and don’t sit around, waiting for incentives.

For example, Michael McKean, the CEO of the Knowland Group in McLean, VA told Business Week he has already hired ten people this year and hopes to hire about six more. The company makes sales, marketing, and lead generation products to help hotels attract conferences and events. He says he believes the industry is due to pick up soon and knows he can increase his credit line

Official data from the Labor Department about hiring won’t be available for several months, but if history is any indication, this data is good news. Companies with less than 500 employees have made up 64% of new jobs created between 1993 and 2008 and it looks like that trend will continue.

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