Rhode Island small business jobs tick up
Posted on April 30, 2012
According to recent data from a payroll company, Rhode Island small business jobs are climbing.
The online payroll to small businesses nationwide announced April results for its monthly SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard® showing small business owners optimism at 65 percent, despite a slight drop in hiring and size of average paychecks. Optimism remains well off its low of 33 percent in September of last year.
For those looking to hire, 40 percent of small business owners said they are having trouble finding qualified candidates in the fields of technology, sales/marketing, customer service and administrative work.
We have a double-edged sword on one side theres a shortage of jobs. On the other side, where there are jobs, there arent 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.
Month-over-month SurePayroll Scorecard data shows hiring just barely negative (-0.1) and average paychecks down 0.3 percent. Month-over-month regional hiring and paychecks were down slightly in all regions of the country except the South, where hiring was up just 0.1 percent.
Year-over-year, nationwide hiring is down only 1.4 percent and paychecks are down 1.3 percent. The South continues to show promising signs with hiring up 1.8 percent and paychecks up 0.4 percent. The West has had the steepest hiring decline at 5.1 percent.
As the first economic indicator created by a payroll company, the SurePayroll Scorecard has provided a monthly look on national hiring and paycheck trends since September 2004. SurePayrolls Scorecard compiles data from over 35,000 small businesses, and exclusively reflects the trends affecting the nations micro businesses those with an average of eight employees.
