by Calculated Risk on 3/06/2011 02:17:00 PM

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will release their February survey on Tuesday, but here is a pre-release of the employment data ... from NFIB: Positive Trend in Job Growth

“February brought us good news on the jobs front: The trend for job creation is, at last, decidedly positive. While job creation reports have been improving for almost two years, they have consistently been negative or near zero, indicating that employment at the nation’s small firms was still contracting, albeit at slower and slower rates. But this month’s reading confirms that we are moving in the right direction. Equally important, small firms’ plans to hire have been consistently positive for the past five consecutive months.

Note: Small businesses have a larger percentage of real estate and retail related companies than the overall economy. With the high percentage of real estate (including small construction companies), small businesses will be slow to recover this cycle.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the net hiring plans for the next three months.

Hiring plans increased slightly in February. According to NFIB: “The percent of owners reporting hard-to-fill job openings rose two points to 15 percent, indicating that a reduction in the unemployment rate is likely within the next few months. Plans to create jobs strengthened; up two points to a net 5 percent of all firms. While this is still low, it is 15 points better than the recession low reading of negative 10 percent, reached in March 2009."

Baby steps in the right direction.

Earlier:
• Summary for last week ending March 4th
• Schedule for Week of March 6th