Intuit report suggest small business squeezed on job creation
The squeeze on small businesses is illustrated in a report by Intuit, the payroll processing company .
The difficulty for small businesses wanting to grow and therefore create jobs is the cost of hiring employees. Paying people to work on a casual basis or on a sub-contract agreement is easier, because the associated employment costs don’t apply. This is the way some very small / micro business increase their output when demand increases.
Interestingly, this post on MountainViewPatch has a slightly different slant, citing the Intuit report as encouraging in that it indicates general trend towards growth.
Different strokes for different folks; figures, indices, statistics, they’re all open to interpretation, but can a report showing wages increasing, whilst hiring falls, be encouraging?
Growth conditions need to be sustainable for a large scale increase in job creation, with small and medium sized companies feeling confident enough to put people on the payroll, and not just pay them in cash. Growing companies need to plan ahead too, thinking about a three to five year strategic plan with organisational change as the foundation for a bigger and more profitable business.
These growing businesses need leaders with vision and energy, people who can see that short term solutions will always find the business back at square one before long. The indication that hours worked are increasing could suggest a trend towards existing workers being asked / encouraged to increase their individual output beyond the normal level - sometimes a necessary part of managing change, but not entirely a good sign. If companies were confident about future growth they would hire new people to do the extra work, wouldn’t they?
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