2009 National Small Business Trends

Small business hiring rose in November. Salaries continued to decline.

The Hiring Index is a proxy for the size of the average small business workforce, including employees and contractors. Its rise of 48 points this month implies that on average small businesses managed to continue to hire despite the tough economy.

The average small business salary decreased for the 22nd consecutive month, as evidenced by the SurePayroll Pay Index dropping nine points from the previous month to 947.


 

About the Scorecard

The SurePayroll Scorecard is a nationally recognized economic indicator that tracks the health of the U.S. small business economy. Each month, SurePayroll analyzes payroll data using tens of thousands of small businesses across the country, and provides national hiring and salary indices, regional hiring and salary indices, and state-based hiring and salary indices.

An expert in small business issues, SurePayroll President Michael Alter regularly discusses the trends revealed by the Scorecard in various media outlets. He has been a featured guest on dozens of top-rated news shows and his comments often appear in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune.