Index up 0.16 percent in January.
Arizona’s small business employment grew 0.16 percent in January, according to the Small Business Index from Intuit.
That comes on top of a 0.20 increase in December and a 0.22 increase in November.
“While small businesses added new jobs in January, it wasn’t as fast [as] in the previous two months,” said Susan Woodward, the economist who works with Intuit to produce the Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes. “We did see a big rise in hours worked during the month. … A change this large nearly guarantees an increase in compensation per worker, which rose by slightly more than 0.4 percent in January. Longer work hours drove most of the increase in compensation, but some was also due to a higher hourly wage. Both of these appear to be due to the recovering economy.”
The study covers firms with fewer than 20 employees.
Across the country, small businesses added 20,000 jobs in January, a 0.09 percent increase from December, according to the survey. Workers at small businesses earned 0.4 percent more than the previous month. Hourly workers saw their hours increase about 30 minutes from December.
Arizona’s 0.16 percent small business increase was about the same as California, New Mexico and Colorado. Utah’s increase was 0.07 percent, while Nevada had a 0.33 percent increase.
