NFIB: The Voice of Small Business - 411 Small Business Facts

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·         One-quarter of small employers have an open position they are currently trying to fill (Q#1).

·         The majority of small employers without a current open position had a job vacancy within the last 12 months, 48 percent within the last six months (Q#2).

·         Just over half (56 percent) of the job openings were full-time positions while 44 percent were part-time (Q#3).

·         About one-quarter of current and recently filled open positions were seasonal in nature; 71 percent were not (Q#4). Smaller firms were far more likely to have seasonal job vacancies than larger firms (29% compared to 11%).

·         About half of the vacant jobs were filled within two weeks and another 20 percent within two to four weeks (Q#5). Some open positions though took longer with 12 percent taking 1 to 3 months to fill and 10 percent took more than three months.

·         While most small business owners pay all of their employees above the federal minimum wage, about 44 percent of small employers have an employee with a salary less than $12.00.

·         The majority (57 percent) of small employers keep their employees’ I-9 forms for more than two years, another 9 percent retain copies for less than two years (Q#21).

·         About one-quarter (26 percent) of small employers found the lack of job-specific or occupational skills a typical problem among applicants, and it was an occasional problem for another 40 percent of owners (Q#16A).

·         A lack of social or people skills was a typical applicant problem for 14 percent of small employers, and an occasional problem for 45 percent of them (Q#16C).

·         About half (47 percent) of small employers said that a two-year phased-in federal minimum wage increase to $15.00 would negatively impact their business (Q#26).

·         Of those small employers reporting that a $15.00 minimum wage would negatively impact their business, 85 percent anticipate that they would have to increase the price of their goods and/or services, passing on some of that cost to the consumer. And 74 percent reported that they would absorb wage increases through lower earnings.

·         Fifty-eight percent anticipated an increased use of less expensive or part-time workers in response to a higher minimum wage, 69 percent would not fill an open position, 63 percent would reduce employees’ hours, and 62 percent would reduce the number of employees working for them.

·         Eighteen percent of small employers reporting that they would be negatively affected said that they would have to raise wages of those earning just above $15.00 and another 6 percent said they would have to raise wages for most of their employees. Eleven percent anticipated having to raise wages for all of their employees.


Volume 13, Issue 6, 2017
ISSN - 1534-8326

Holly S. Wade
NFIB Research Center



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