Small businesses are hiring now, but don’t expect the good times to last, says the National Federation of Independent Business.
While March posted the fourth straight month of net job growth, with small businesses adding an average of 0.19 jobs per firm, plans to continue hiring fell four points to zero, the group found.
This drop indicates “plans to create jobs took a dive,” William Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist, said in a statement.
“Once again, our bifurcated economy may have large firms doing well but the Main Street owners not sharing in the gains and finding little reason to take on new employees,” Dunkelberg said. “Owners are still pessimistic and see little reason to hire.”
As the stock market has risen and housing has rebounded, small business hasn’t recovered so easily.
Over 99 percent of all firms are considered small businesses and they employ more than half the work force, according to the Small Business Administration.
The creation of new businesses has dropped dramatically since the financial crisis.
In 2006, there were more than 650,000 firms that had been opened less than a year. By 2010, the number had dropped 500,000 and new job creation dropped along with it, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since then, hiring has improved, but remains below the levels seen earlier in the 2000s.
“Small businesses need a shot in the arm; but seeing as this is unlikely, the slow crawl to eventual prosperity might be the best we can hope for,” Dunkelberg added.
A new survey released by Thumbtack.com, a crowd-sourcing service website, in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation reveals many of the issues facing small businesses. Some of their biggest concerns include the ability to acquire health insurance as well as problems securing professional licensing.
“[O]ne-third of the small business owners rated obtaining and keeping health insurance ‘Very Difficult,’ while only 6% rated it ‘Very Easy,'” the survey finds. On top of this, the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced it would delay the implementation of a component of Obamacare that would provide more insurance options to small businesses.
“Policymakers put themselves in the best position to encourage sustainable growth and long-term prosperity by listening to the voices of small business owners themselves,” Dane Stangler, director of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, said in a statement.
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