Regional Small Business Trends
Small businesses employee headcount increased in November in every region of the country. Year to date, every region except the Northeast has seen growth in small business hiring, and in the last couple of months we've seen the Northeast edging up in hiring. In fact, the NorthEast has crept back up to salary levels equivalent to where it was in April 2004.
Year to date, small business paychecks remain down in the Midwest and the West. In the Northeast, where businesses have not grown, salaries are up 5.2% for the year. In the South, we saw a big jump in average paycheck size last month, to the point where paychecks are now up 8.1% for the year on average. If there's a winner in the regional economies, it's clearly the South. They are the only region in the country that is up both in terms of employee counts and paycheck sizes.
Below is the SurePayroll Scorecard data for each region on a monthly basis since the beginning of the year.
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The SurePayroll Hiring Index and the SurePayroll Pay Index are generated as part of SurePayroll’s Small Business Scorecard, an economic indicator that tracks the health of the U.S. small business economy. The Small Business Scorecard is generated from actual payroll data — paychecks issued to contractors and employees — for over 13,000 small businesses nationwide.
Questions regarding the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard can be directed to Michael Alter. Michael can be reached at malter@surepayroll.com or by phone at (847) 676-8420 ext. 7229.
Small Business Scorecards Archive:
Scorecard |
2008 |
2007 |
2006 |
2005 |
2004
