by Calculated Risk on 4/02/2014 05:15:00 PM

From NFIB: Small Business Job Creation Better Than February But...

“NFIB owners increased employment by an average of 0.18 workers per firm in March (seasonally adjusted), an improvement over February’s 0.11 reading and the sixth positive month in a row. Seasonally adjusted, 11 percent of the owners (down 1 point) reported adding an average of 2.6 workers per firm over the past few months. Offsetting that, 12 percent reduced employment (up 2 points) an average of 2.1 workers, producing the seasonally adjusted net gain of 0.18 workers per firm overall. While there could still be lingering winter effects in the data, some of the best job producing areas, the Southwest, West and Florida, did not have weather problems and still delivered mediocre growth ratings.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph from NFIB shows the change in number of employees per firm.

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.