Small Business Employment Remains Flat in February

In the month of February, small business employment in the United States remained stagnant, according to Accounting Today. The average number of hours worked and monthly wages increased. Revenue for small businesses dropped by 0.09 percent in January.

The data was constructed by the monthly Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes from Intuit. Since March of 2010, small businesses have added more than 570,000 jobs. Average monthly compensation for employees increased by 0.5 percent in February, which is a jump of $15 from the revised figure in January. The average hours worked by employees on an hourly basis jumped by 0.5 percent in February. This is an increase of 30 minutes from the revised figure in January.

“By region, the Midwest and the East Coast saw the most employment declines, possibly due to the extreme winter,” said Susan Woodward , an economist who helps create the indexes with Intuit. “While the changes in employment are mixed across states overall, total compensation and hours worked were up in all states except Idaho, a major skiing state which is suffering from a snowless winter, and New Jersey, whose changes were small.”

Intuit tracks small business employment in 38 states using the Employment Index. Eleven of those 38 states saw an increase in small business employment. Kentucky witnessed the largest jump, at 0.4 percent, for the second straight month. There were declines in 21 states, with six of them remaining unchanged. The largest drops were seen in Idaho and Missouri, at 0.2 percent for each state.

The industry with the largest decline in employment was the real estate services industry, which dropped by 0.5 percent. The accommodation and food services industry dropped by 0.2 percent.

“The drop in real estate services revenue reflects the decline in home sales, while the drop in revenues for the accommodation and food services sector results from the difficult winter,” said Woodward.