Other Numbers

Tighter short-term credit isn't affecting hiring plans of small-business owners, who continue to view tight labor markets as their principal challenge, the National Federation of Independent Business found in its latest monthly survey.

That bodes well for the overall U.S. economy, which has been adding jobs at a relatively anemic pace in recent months. The entrepreneurs surveyed by NFIB were more optimistic than a sample of 580 CFOs of mostly mid-size organizations polled in a quarterly survey by Duke University and CFO magazine, released in September.

On the one hand, 9 percent of owners in the NFIB survey said loans are harder to get and none said they are easier – the most negative reading on credit conditions since 1993. Yet a mere 3 percent of those surveyed cited the cost and availability of credit as their single biggest business problem; just 5 percent reported problems obtaining desired financing, compared with 37 percent who reported all their credit needs are being met.

As for employment, the latest survey highlights continuing labor shortages, notwithstanding slightly weaker seasonally adjusted survey numbers in September while the national jobless rate ticked up to 4.7 percent. Says the NFIB:

Seventeen percent of the owners reported that the availability of qualified labor was their top business problem, up four points from June and July….They would like to hire, but the job market is not cooperating. One in four owners reported unfilled job openings and the net percent planning to increase employment in the coming months is among the best readings in the history of the NFIB survey. The problem remains finding qualified works, cited by 17 percent as their most important business challenge. Fifty-seven percent of the owners hired or tried to hire new workers, but 84 percent reported few or no qualified applicants.

Small-Business Economic Trends - October 2007 [NFIB]