The new year means some major changes coming to the business sector. Although no one can predict with 100% accuracy exactly what’s to come out of 2018, there have already been noted positives and negatives within the U.S. business market.
According to Accounting Today, the minimum wage increases in states across the country are leading to increased wages for all levels of business employees — a positive sign. Unfortunately, the rate of job growth across America’s businesses — small businesses especially — has significantly slowed.
“While small business jobs growth slowed this year, it’s important to recall that small businesses led the hiring surge coming out of the recession and maintained high levels of growth for quite some time,” said Martin Mucci, President and CEO of Paychex.
Paychex released its annual Small Business Employment Watch report alongside IHS Markit to outline both the wage increases and the decline in small business job growth. In December, the Small Business Jobs Index dropped to 99.70, a decrease of 0.16% for the month and 0.78% on the year. Wages, conversely, increased 2.76% year over year and averages a steady 2.85% for 2017.
“Basically what we’ve seen was almost a point less job growth from last December, but we still have moderate job growth,” added Mucci.
During 2016, when the small business wages averaged 2.75%, a BizBuySell.com report found that companies that were sold had grown both revenues and cash flow 5.2% and 5.4% respectively over the previous year.
CNBC adds that, luckily, American jobs have increased, somewhat significantly in certain months, throughout 2017.
“The jobs number in the report is good news for American workers, but the lack of stronger wage growth is not,” added Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union.
