The West continued to be the best place for small businesses and their employees through August 2007 with hiring and paychecks going up more than any other region of the country, according to the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard survey.
SurePayroll's monthly survey of more than 18,000 small businesses nationwide showed that, through Aug. 31, small businesses in Western states including Colorado had reported an average 4.6 percent increase in employee hiring for the year and paychecks rising on average by 4.9 percent.
Colorado showed strength through August, with a 3.7 percent increase in small business hiring and average paychecks rising by 2.2 percent.
Michael Alter, SurePayroll president, said despite overall falling small business optimism in recent months, all areas of the nation continued to have increases in hiring and paycheck hikes through August. Nationwide, the number of small business new hires was up 3 percent and the average paycheck was up by 3.3 percent.
"Despite growing pessimism, we continue to see hiring growth in the small business economy," Alter said. "Year-to-date, small business hiring has increased 3 percent. On an annualized basis, that puts small business hiring on track to grow 4.5 percent this year."
Alter noted that small business hiring declined by 0.2 percent last year and that August marked the ninth straight month of hiring growth seen by the survey.
But Alter said that could drop off in the final months of 2007. "Expect hiring to decline in the months to come," he said. "Swings in optimism don't have an instantaneous impact on small business hiring, but we do expect lower business optimism to curtail hiring in the next few months."
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