Overall, small business owners tend to “hold the line.†No matter what the economic situation, over the past 10 years the percentage of entrepreneurs who are planning to add employees has consistently surpassed the percentage planning cutbacks. This doesn’t surprise me, as entrepreneurs who work closely with their teams are likely to do everything in their power to avoid layoffs.
The bigger the small business, the more likely it is to hire. Over the 10-year period, companies with 20 or more workers, or sales of $500,000 and up, were consistently more likely to plan to hire than other groups.
That’s also not surprising, but what is more unexpected is that the smallest companies—those with under 10 employees—were far more likely to fall in line with the hiring average. In contrast, companies with 10 to 19 employees have consistently been the most volatile.
Photo by Bart Everson