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Intuit: SMB Employment Flat in September

Intuit’s monthly Small Business Indexes indicated small business employment remained unchanged in September, with employees paid slightly more while working slightly less throughout the month.

Intuit noted these fluctuations could be a function of a decrease in small business revenue in August by 0.3 percent.

Employment for small business totaled 20.65 million people nationally, up 155,000, or 0.8 percent, from a year ago, based on Intuit’s online payroll software. From August 2014 to August 2015, total national payroll employment rose 2.1 percent.

Despite the flat net hiring, the hiring rate continued at 5.25 percent, reflecting the high turnover in small business employees.

Small business employees saw a slight increase in monthly compensation, with average monthly pay reaching the equivalent of $2,838 in September, up $2 from August. While the growth rate in September was only 0.6 percent, compensation was up 1.5 percent from a year ago.

The average number of monthly hours worked by hourly employees was 109.9 hours in September, which was down 4 minutes from August.

Intuit sees a possible correlation between the September data on employment, compensation and hours worked, based on payroll information, and August small business revenue figures derived from QuickBooks. Intuit found that s mall business revenue overall decreased 0.3 percent across all industries in August. Real estate, rental and leasing businesses showed the largest decrease in monthly revenue, falling 0.4 percent.

The company noted this reflects the National Association of Realtors estimate that home sales fell by 4.8 percent in August. Construction businesses posted the biggest revenue increase in August, with revenues rising 1.1 percent.

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