Optimism Among Small Businesses Remains Steady, Says SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard

Optimism among small business owners remains positive, according to the monthly survey by SurePayroll Inc., provider of online payroll services.

The April SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard showed that small business owners’ optimism was 65 percent, even though there was a drop in hiring and average paycheck size. Part of the hiring decrease was due to the difficulty in finding qualified candidates for the jobs owners had available. The scorecard showed that 40 percent of small business owners looking to hire need qualified candidates for positions within the technology, sales and marketing, customer service and administrative industries.

“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,” said 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.”

Nationally, hiring was down 0.1 per cent and the average size of paychecks decreased 0.3 percent from last month. Every region except the South saw a decline in hiring and paycheck size. Hiring in the South was up 0.1 percent. The SurePayroll Scorecard showed nationwide hiring and paychecks were both down from last year, 1.4 percent and 1.3 percent respectively. The biggest hiring decrease was seen in the West, down 5.1 percent from the previous year. Again, the South continued to experience a boom as hiring was up 1.8 percent and paychecks increased 0.4 percent from year-to-year.