The CBIZ Small Business Employment Index, which measures hiring trends among companies with 300 or fewer employees, fell by 1.57 percent during July after a 1.38 percent increase in June.
"As we have seen in the previous two years, the SBEI metric has moved negative in the month of July," says Philip Noftsinger, business unit president for CBIZ Payroll Services. "This year's data moved more negative than in the previous two years, possibly indicating that small-business employers are not only feeling the economic slowdown that has been widely acknowledged but may also be anticipating the slowdown continuing or increasing as we approach the fall and into the holiday shopping season."
Twenty-nine percent of respondents cut staff; however, 22 percent of respondents added employees. Another 49 percent of respondents maintained staffing levels.
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The research also suggests that if the jobless rate remains at 8.2 percent, the small-business sector could face more future losses as the costs of conducting business is rising. There are also worries that business pressures will grow by weakening global growth prospects. To counter this, CBIZ Payroll Services recommends that business owners should continually monitor fiscal controls, process evaluation and metrics management.
"Owners of businesses with less than 300 total employees are still focused on and concerned with anticipated sales, taxes and regulation," Noftsinger says. "It is possible that if the entrepreneurs we work with were able to better predict the changes to the latter two items via action by Congress, they may be willing to invest in additional labor. Predictability is extremely important for the small-business owner who after three years of slow economic activity is operating with few resources."
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