SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard Provides Insights Into Economic Health of Nation's Small Businesses
July 2, 2004
CHICAGO -- Small businesses are growing bigger but paychecks are growing smaller, according to SurePayroll, the nation's fifth largest payroll provider and largest online payroll provider.
Today, SurePayroll released preliminary Second Quarter 2004 data for its Small Business Scorecard. Additional data, including regional and state trend data, will be available on July 6, 2004. The Second Quarter data will be posted at http://www.surepayroll.com/scorecard/ .
SurePayroll aggregates data for more than 12,000 customers on a quarterly basis and provides detailed information on small business employment, earnings, and subcontractor trends. SurePayroll will process nearly $3 billion in employee and contractor payroll payments in 2004.
Some quick early insights from SurePayroll's Small Business Scorecard:
With respect to the number of employees and contractors paid, small business nationwide appeared to grow in size on average. Relative to the first quarter of 2004, small businesses grew 2.6%. Both the employee and the independent contractor averages increased. This suggests that small businesses continue to recover and have more business now than they've had in the recent past.
Use of independent contractors was up from First Quarter 2004. The average small business used more independent contractors in the Second Quarter than they did in the First Quarter.
Salaries were down on average in the Second Quarter relative to the First Quarter. How is it that businesses appear to be doing better in terms of the number of workers yet the average worker is receiving lower payments that they did in the past? That's probably the most interesting question for this Scorecard.
"The good news is small businesses are doing well enough to bring in new people," said Michael Alter, President of SurePayroll. "The bad news is that small business salaries are trending down."
Alter believes that salaries are trending down because it remains a buyer's market for new employees. "New employees simply cannot demand high salaries and, more often than not, must settle for what's offered to them. That's because there's somebody waiting in line right behind them with identical or better qualifications who is willing to work for less money," said Alter. "We have moved beyond a jobless recovery, but the quality of jobs is deficient relative to what people are used to from the past. If the economy continues to recover, the excess capacity in the market will start to disappear and my expectation is that we will see better-quality jobs and small business salaries increasing in future months."
About SurePayroll:
Privately held SurePayroll is America's fifth largest payroll provider and the nation's largest online payroll provider. Catering exclusively to the needs of small businesses, SurePayroll provides a simple, reliable and economical way to process payroll in minutes via the Internet. In addition to providing payroll services directly to small business, SurePayroll also provides a private-label payroll service that allows SurePayroll's numerous partners to offer payroll processing to their small business clients. Business partners include Wells Fargo and ABN AMRO. For more information, visit http://www.surepayroll.com.
For More Information:
Ken Gaebler
Walker Sands Communications
www.walkersands.com
Phone: (312) 543-0654
Email: surepayroll-inquiries@walkersands.com
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