A little good news for small businesses?

A little good news on the ‘small business’ front!!! (See article about employment figures for small business).
Written and posted originally from Chris Crum of Smallbusinessnewz:

Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Intuit, the software vendor responsible for such popular financial software like Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax, has released its monthly report, the Small Business Employment Index. The main finding of this month's report is that small businesses are showing signs of an economic rebound. The findings were based on data from businesses with fewer than 20 employees (87% of the total US private employer base). Do you think employment is turning around? "Employment for these small businesses began trending upward in mid-2009, a good sign for the overall economy," said Dr. Susan Woodward, the economist who worked with Intuit to create the index.

"This index is an indicator that the small business employment situation may be getting better," she added. "Small businesses generally recover faster than larger businesses because they begin hiring sooner than big businesses. To see these figures showing a rise in employment at small businesses is very heartening at a time when good news is scarce."

Employment among these businesses has declined overall since December 2007, but the most recent month-over-month change was up 0.2% (on a "seasonally adjusted basis"). It is only the latest in an upward trend since mid-2009. According to Intuit's findings, employment grew nearly 0.8% over the past eight months, which is 1.1% at an annual rate, translating into nearly 40,000 new jobs for February and about 150,000 new jobs since June 2009.

Intuit also found that monthly average compensation per employee has been flat since September 2008, and it remained relatively flat in February at $2,559, down by 0.1% compared to January. Hourly employees worked an average of 101.4 hours in February. Intuit surveyed about 50,000 small businesses to obtain this information.