Small Business Scorecard reports drop in Seattle payroll
By Seattle Business Magazine August 10, 2011
SurePayroll’s Small Business Scorecard hiring index for Seattle, which is based on the number of people on the payroll of its 33,000 small business clients (average 7 employees) fell by 5.2 percent in July from the month before while the average paycheck size rose by 0.8 percent. Nationally, employment fell 2.4 percent while paycheck size rose 0.3 percent.
It’s hard to know the significance of these monthly numbers. Michael Alter, CEO of SurePayroll, says that small business payroll, after fluctuating around neutral territory for several months now appear trended down.
The numbers are a little surprising since overall private sector jobs nationwide rose by 112,000 jobs in July from the month before. Still the small business trend suggests growing anxiety among many entrepreneurs. There’s a good explanation of SurePayroll’s index and other monthly indexes here.