by Calculated Risk on 4/02/2011 04:56:00 PM

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will release their March survey on Tuesday, April 12th, but here is a pre-release of the employment data ... from NFIB: NFIB Jobs Statement: Main Street Adds Jobs for Second Consecutive Month

“The positive job creation observed in February was repeated again in March (sigh of relief here), confirming that the number of net new jobs reported on Main Street was decidedly positive. Employment gains have not been this good since 2007.

“The percent of owners reporting hard to fill job openings was unchanged at 15 percent, supporting the modest reductions in the unemployment rate recently observed. Unfortunately, the net percent of owners planning to create new jobs (increasing the total number of workers employed) lost three points, falling to a net 2 percent of all firms, low, but still 12 points better than the recession low reading of negative 10 percent reached in March 2009.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

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

Hiring plans decreased in March, but are still positive.

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), I expect small business hiring to be slow to recover in this cycle.

Earlier:
• Summary for Week ending April 1st