Small Business Owners Optimistic

After years of living under the rain cloud of recession, things may finally be looking up, at least judging by the results of a recent survey conducted by SurePayroll.

The?SurePayroll Scorecard, which looks at national, state and regional hiring and salary indices as an indicator of the overall U.S. economy, showed that 70% of small business owners are optimistic about the state of their businesses.

The Signs of Good Things to Come

What proof do we actually have that things are better? Well, for one, we?re hiring more. In the survey, 31% said they planned to hire during 2012. Only 2% plan to reduce hiring. ?Nearly 80% said their first quarter of business met or exceeded expectations, largely due to an increase in customer demand, as well as some cost cutting.

We hire more people when there?s a greater demand for our products and services. When the economy improves, more people spend money. ?SurePayroll CEO and President Michael Alter says:

?Small businesses are seeing some demand rebounding in their businesses and very few are talking about a pullback in hiring. These are good signs for the future.?

Still Room for Improvement

One area that stayed flat or decreased slightly on the?SurePayroll Scorecard is salary. While businesses are hiring (at least some of them), they?re not paying more. Some people who work for large corporations took a paycut during the recession ? but still haven?t seen that money back.

Here?s hoping that businesses begin to relax and get some confidence that growth is coming and that they will increase pay for employees.

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