Intuit QuickBooks announced a new Small Business Index, providing unique and timely insights into the small business economy in the US, Canada, and the UK.
This powerful new monthly indicator of employment and hiring is uniquely focused on the smallest of small businesses (those with 1-9 employees in the US / 1-19 employees in Canada) which are vital to the current and future health of the economy but often underrepresented in economic data. Additionally, unlike some other small business indexes, this analysis does not rely exclusively on survey samples but on anonymized QuickBooks Payroll data that is aggregated and normalized against official government statistics before publication using proprietary economic models created in partnership with world-renowned independent economists. For context, QuickBooks is the number one payroll service provider for small businesses.
Some key findings:
- In the US in February 2023, small businesses with one to nine employees employed 7,600 fewer people nationally (seasonally adjusted) compared to the previous month, a monthly decrease of -0.06. Total employment dropped to 12,812,700 jobs.
- Sectors that experienced the largest decrease in employment in the US were Information (-0.6%), Manufacturing (-0.33%), and Finance and Real Estate (-0.24%), while employment increased in the Utilities (0.56%), Natural Resources and Mining (0.29%), and Leisure and Hospitality (0.27%) sectors.
- The US region with the largest monthly drop in employment was the Mideast (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania) at -0.18% while employment grew by 0.33% in New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont).
You can find the press release here and the blog post w/ full data insights here.