How are US-based small businesses doing this month? According to online payroll service provider SurePayroll‘s Small Business Scorecard – a nationally recognized economic indicator that tracks the health of the U.S. small business economy by compiling data from over 35,000 small businesses – for the month of April 2012 things don’t look too flashy.
In fact the scorecard shows that, nation-wide, month-over-month, hiring is just barely negative (-0.1) and average paychecks are down 0.3%, while year-over-year, hiring is down 1.3% and paychecks are down 1.3%. Optimism among small business owners is 65%, down slightly from last month’s high of 70%, but well above the low 33% reported back in September 2011. Interestingly, the survey also found that among small business owners looking to hire, 40% report they are having the most trouble finding candidates in the following fields: technology, sales and marketing, customer service, administrative work.
“We have a double-edged sword — on one side there’s a shortage of jobs. On the other side, where there are jobs, there aren’t enough qualified workers to fill them,” says SurePayroll CEO and President Michael Alter. “As a nation, we need to look forward, educating and training in fields where jobs will be available in the future, instead of just training for the jobs available today.”
Here’s an infographic that details the data:
[…] Optimism amongst small business owners is down from 62-percent last month to 60-percent (it was 70-percent earlier this March). Month-over-month, hiring is down 0.1 percent and the average paycheck is down 0.2 percent. […]
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