The latest Paychex | IHS Small Business Jobs Index continued to show slow, steady growth in employment at companies with less than 50 people around the country, but the numbers are still weaker for the northeast, including New York State.
In terms of jobs created by small businesses, New York ranked at the bottom of the list on a state-by-state basis.
Paychex CEO Martin Mucci tells WXXI News that by comparison, other areas of the country are just doing better right now in sectors like housing and construction.
The survey also shows an increase in jobs related to personal services, which Mucci says can be a good sign for the economy.
“People are spending money, consumers are spending money on things that they wouldn’t have, closer to the recession. The negative is that a lot of that is part-time jobs and so you’re seeing this growing number of part time jobs being added back, and that’s probably not as strong as full-time, obviously.”
Mucci says he does notice that there is an increasing number of part-time jobs, which may be partly due to small business owners trying to deal with changes in various regulations including health care. But Mucci also says some of those part time jobs are being filled by younger people who may actually prefer part-time work.
“Seems to be a growing number of millennial generation (people) that seem to want more part- time work, at least to get started sometime in their careers. But on the other side because of the changing regulations, the Affordable Care Act, overtime rules being extended, there does seem to be also the employer’s side of it, who are hiring more part-time.”
The latest survey shows that the mountain region of the U.S. and parts of Texas were among the strongest in small business job growth in September.
