Additional take-away points from the August data includes:
- More companies are cutting staff: The payroll data showed that 26.6 percent of the companies managed by CBIZ Payroll Services reduced their headcount during the month of September, compared to 28 percent of companies doing so in August. Year-to-date, the data shows more jobs have been lost than added.
- More signs of caution: Of the 3,013 companies included in the survey in September, only 23.3 percent added employees and 49.9 percent made no change. August data showed that 22.9 is the real number percent of companies added staff; while 50 percent maintained headcount (2,964 companies represented the total companies during the August index).
- What to watch: Outcomes from the latest round of stimulus aimed at spurring job growth at U.S. small businesses, which was recently signed into legislation by President Obama, may offer us an improvement in future hiring.
Philip Noftsinger, Business Unit President for CBIZ Payroll Services offers, “September numbers again demonstrated a modest decline in net employment figures, which is consistent with weekly initial claims data still hovering around the 450,000. The pattern of no significant investment in new workers, yet no significant decrease, appears to have continued into September and is holding steady. Among companies with fewer than 300 employees, the attitude truly remains ‘wait-and-see’ as business owners eagerly await greater strength in the economy and more certainty on the future of hiring incentives and tax changes coming from Washington.”
This percentage of companies maintaining or cutting payrolls during September 2010 was 76.7 percent, which is slight increase over the September 2009 total of 76.5 percent - another signal that small business hiring confidence has stagnated over the past year says Noftsinger.
