by Calculated Risk on 6/06/2011 08:48:00 AM

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will release their April survey on Tuesday, June 14th. Here is a pre-release of the employment results from NFIB: NFIB Jobs Statement: On Main Street, Job Creation is Collapsing

“After solid job gains early in the year, progress has slowed to a trickle ... meaningful job creation on Main Street has collapsed.
...
[I]ndications of minimal future growth include the fact that in the next three months, 13 percent plan to increase employment (down 3 points), and 8 percent plan to reduce their workforce (up 2 points). That yields a seasonally adjusted net negative 1 percent of owners planning to create new jobs, a 3 point loss from April.
...
“Overall, reports of job reductions have returned to historically normal levels. However, the percent of owners hiring has not recovered to levels historically observed after two years of expansion. With one in four owners still reporting ‘weak sales’ as their No. 1 business problem, there is little need to add employees ...

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

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

Hiring plans declined in May and are slightly negative.

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 remain sluggish for some time.

Note that job reductions have fallen to "historically normal levels", but there is little job creation.