Intuit Finds Small Biz Employment Up In December

Happy New Year, everyone, and for that matter, happy old year, too.  There’s good news regarding employment trends and the end of 2010 this morning as a fresh report from Intuit has rolled in: the Intuit Small Business Employment Index indicates that 57,000 jobs were created in December.

That finding builds on other positive patterns.  Intuit explained in a statement, "Based on this latest data, the employment growth rate for November was revised upward to 0.4 percent, equating to 73,000 jobs added for the month and a 4.4 percent annual growth rate.  Since the growth trend first began in October 2009, small business jobs have increased by a revised estimate of 880,000."

Also, hours worked by small businesses’ hourly employees increased by 0.2 percent between November and December, and while that might not sound like much, the growth is a good sign.

Susan Woodward, an economist who contributed to the report, noted, "We might expect that after months of high hours per employee, that businesses would hire and hours would fall back to normal.  Instead, we see hiring up and hours worked up also.  These are good signs for the recovery."

One more positive (though unrelated) indicator: the Dow closed at a fresh 2-year high yesterday, and at least so far, it hasn’t begun to give up those gains this morning.