Small Businesses Still Hired in November
by Christina Lee on December 5th, 2008
Even in the current economic environment, a recent survey found that small businesses are faring better than they may think.
Small businesses increased their staff levels by 0.26 percent last month and 3.3 percent for the year so far, according to payroll administrator SurePayroll.
“We are big believers in small business resiliency but even we were a little surprised to see that U.S. small businesses managed to hire new employees in November,” said Michael Alter, SurePayroll president, in a statement.
SurePayroll polled more than 20,000 small businesses, finding that they hired more while also paying less for salaries. The average paycheck fell nationwide by 0.39 percent, and has fallen by 2.6 percent so far this year.
“We had anticipated a slowdown in salary declines, but higher employment clearly is allowing employers to hire talent for less money,” Alter said.
When SurePayroll asked a smaller sample how the economic downturn affected them, about 43 percent of them said that business has not been affected negatively. In addition, 4 percent of them even said they were doing better.
More than half of those businesses said they now feel optimistic about the economy, though other businesses surveyed in different studies revealed a growing pessimism.
In a Discover Financial Services survey conducted last month, about 65 percent of small businesses rated the economy as ‘poor.’ A third of the polled business-to-business owners also said they had cash flow issues in the preceding 90 days.
In addition, the National Federation of Independent Business found that positive outlooks from small business owners in August and September led to “recession level” feelings in October.
“October … would seem to be the proverbial ‘nail.’ Case closed. Tough times ahead,” the economic report stated.
Meanwhile, Alter had also considered news of a developing recession that month.
“It would be truly remarkable if small businesses could still manage to grow on average,” Alter said in SurePayroll’s October report. However, he had also likened small businesses to Rocky Balboa: “beat them to a pulp and they will keeping fighting.”