October Sees Small Business Employment Growth

 In its monthly Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes, Intuit Inc. has reported that:

• U.S. small businesses added 15,000 new jobs in October, making for more than 735,000 jobs added since March 2010.
• Small business employees saw a 0.08 percent increase in monthly compensation, with average monthly pay reaching $2,776, up $2 from September.
• Hourly employees worked an average of 109.1 hours in October, down almost two minutes, or 0.03 percent, from September’s revised figure.
• Revenues per small business grew by 0.03 percent in September, roughly 3.2 percent when annualized.
• Real estate services revenues have grown steadily over the past six months, by 4.2 percent, reflecting the 6 percent seasonally adjusted rise in home sales from March to September, 2014. Real estate services and construction industries showed the largest increase in September, at 0.3 percent

“Small businesses added 15,000 jobs this month, the biggest rise since June. If their employment continues to grow at this rate for a year, the result would be an annual increase of just under 1 percent,” said Susan Woodward, the economist who works with Intuit to create the Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes.

“The overall labor market is improving slowly, with small businesses growing a bit slower. While total payroll employment has passed its pre-recession peak, small business remains below its peak by 750,000 jobs, or 3.5 percent. Much of this shortfall is due to the failure of construction to return to pre-recession levels,” Woodward said.

The new-hire rate has continued to rise slowly since June 2009, and rose again this month by 0.2 percent, showing a trend among small business owners to hire rather than push current employees to work more hours. Though compensation rose by just a nickel an hour to $16.20 for hourly workers.