SurePayroll Scorecard - 2005 - June - National Small Business Trends

National Small Business Trends

Year to date, small businesses have increased employee headcount by 0.3%. The national SurePayroll Hiring Index, which measures the number of employees within small businesses, ended June at 10,466, exactly the same way we ended May. We closed 2004 at 10,435.

2005 probably won't be remembered as a great year by most small business owners. On an annualized basis, we are tracking on a 0.6% increase in small business size.

Small business paychecks were up in June. The SurePayroll Pay Index clocked in at 931 at the end of June, a one point increase from May.

Small business salaries are now down 2.26% year to date. In 2004, small business salaries dropped 4.8% on average. Based on June's data, we will have a smaller salary drop in 2005 than we had in 2004. June's 2.26% year-to-date drop translates to an annualized rate of 4.46%. That's a turnaround from last month when the projection suggested we'd have a steeper decline in 2005 than we had in 2004.

The monthly SurePayroll Scorecard data for June 2005 can be found in the table below.

	SurePayroll Hiring Index	SurePayroll Pay Index
June '05	10,466	931
May '05	10,466	930
April '05	10,458	935
March '05	10,440	942
February '05	10,438	946
January '05	10,444	947

About the Scorecard
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 15,000 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.

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