More than half (51 percent) of small-business owners reported hiring or trying to hire in January, according to the latest monthly jobs report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
Additionally, 17 percent of small-business owners surveyed said they planned to create new jobs in the next three months.
“Small-business owners are working hard on their road to recovery, but some industries are still constricted by state and local mandates,” NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said in a release. “The success of the recovery will depend on if the economy is open and consumers return.”
NFIB said small businesses increased employment in January by 0.36 workers per firm on average over the past few months, up from 0.30 in December. It said 33 percent of all owners reported job openings they could not fill in the current period, up one point from December. Twenty-eight percent of owners said they have openings for skilled workers and 12 percent reported openings for unskilled labor.
NFIB said finding qualified labor remains a problem for small-business owners, with 90 percent of survey respondents hiring or trying to hire reported few or no “qualified” applicants for the positions they were trying to fill in January, down two points from December.
Twenty-six percent of owners reported few qualified applicants for their open positions and 20 percent reported none, according to NFIB.
NFIB said a net 25 percent (seasonally adjusted) of owners reported raising compensation and a net 17 percent plan to do so in the coming months. Seven percent of owners cited labor costs as their top business problem, unchanged from December.