US Small Firm Confidence Up Slightly

The National Federation of Independent Business’s small-business optimism index rose modestly to 96.1 from 95.9 in August.

As we do each month, we wanted to provide an update of what the biggest problems facing small business owners are. It said that level was consistent with a 2.5% annualized growth rate.

Small-business owners’ confidence about their economic situation was little changed in September, according to a report released Tuesday.

The four “hard” measures of the index posted mixed results last month.

“Every candidate for every office will talk about small business for the next 13 months”. In the case of Quality of Labor, this month’s increase was only two percentage points but is a continuation of a trend that has been in place for a year now. The share of owners who said their existing inventories are two low rose a point to a net negative 6 percent. Twelve percent of those polled said they will need to add employees before the end of the year, an increase of three percentage points compared to September of both 2013 and 2014, and an eight point increase compared to the same time period in 2012. More than half (53 percent) of small business owners said they have either hired or tried to hire new staff. “This is the highest reading since 2007 and suggests that employers will continue to face wage pressure in order to attract and keep good employees”, Dunkelberg said. But fewer business owners expect strong sales. At the same time, 11 percent of owners cited poor sales as their most pressing business problem, fourth among the most-cited concerns.

In all, 23% of owners reported raising worker compensation, unchanged from August and two points below the expansion high reading reached in January and May.