Small Business Payroll Grows in July - Intuit Small Biz Index

Intuit’s Small Business Index Shows Increase in Hours and Compensation

Intuit, developers of the popular accounting software program QuickBooks®, is also the nation’s leading provider of online payroll administration and processing for small business owners. Intuit has a wealth of information about small business employment serving more than 1 million small business payroll customers.

Intuit launched their Small Business Employment Index to provide a unique view into small business employment trends. Their index is one of the few to compile employment statistics for companies with fewer than 20 employees, which represent 87 percent of all U.S. employer firms and employ nearly 20 million people.

Small business employers added 50,000 people to their payroll and significantly increased both hours worked and compensation. Small business hourly employees worked an average of 110.2 hours in July, making for a 25.4-hour workweek. This is a 0.7 percent increase from the revised June figure of 109.5 hours.

Click on this link http://www.intuitinc.com/payrollindex to read the entire report.

Is this report a clear indicator of things to come? Small business owners and entrepreneurs across America struggle to grow their business, and contribute to revitalizing our economy. Like the red locomotive in the children’s story “The Little Engine That Could”, small business remains this nation’s only hope for a recovery. Small businesses are truly the builders of our economic wealth.

Unfortunately, our government and multinational corporations are selling us short. In the last month large corporations like Boeing, Cisco, Merck, RIM, as well as state and local governments reported layoffs in June of more than 140,000 employees. The news reports of the last week have never been grimmer. Growth in the last two quarters averaged less than 1 percent. Credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded the AAA rating on America’s debt, flaming the fears of a global “double dip” recession.

Politicians continue to fiddle while Rome burns. History has shown that when true adversity strikes, America rises to the challenge. One of this country’s most loved and respected leaders said in an address “When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity”. That was in 1959 by soon to be President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to voters in Indianapolis.

In his 1961 inaugural address, President Kennedy gave his famous speech challenging Americans to “Ask not what your country can do for you — Ask what you can do for your country”. He continued “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the feedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deed, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing here God’s work must truly be our own”.

Pray for our leaders to come together …. history is watching.