FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Patrick Connor, Washington State Director, patrick.connor@nfib.org,
or Tony Malandra, Senior Media Manager, anthony.malandra@nfib.org

OLYMPIA, Wash., Nov. 6, 2025—From NFIB Washington State Director Patrick Connor on today’s release of the monthly Jobs Report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), showing that 32% (seasonally adjusted) of small business owners reported job openings they could not fill in October, unchanged for the second month in a row.

“The ongoing mismatch between job vacancies and workers qualified to fill them threatens to further strain Washington state’s already overburdened social insurance safety net. As if the state’s largest-in-history tax increase wasn’t damaging enough to job creators, Main Street employers also face a $17.13 minimum wage, an average 5% increase in workers’ compensation rates, a staggering 23% increase in Paid Family & Medical Leave premiums, and a yet-to-be announced hike in unemployment taxes for 2026. There are also rumblings about an added surcharge on employers in the near future to keep the Unemployment Trust Fund solvent. Rather than looking to create another new payroll or income tax next year, the Legislature ought to instead be asking what it can do help small businesses put more people to work. We should be growing the tax base, not growing the tax burden.

NFIB’s Jobs Report is a national survey of NFIB-member small-business owners, not broken down by state. The typical NFIB member employs between one and nine people and reports gross sales of about $500,000 a year. This report is based on 984 respondents to the October survey of a random sample of NFIB’s member firms, surveyed through 10/31/2025.

From NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg

“The post-Covid labor market appears to have mostly normalized on Main Street. Jobs are plentiful albeit declining, while qualified applicants are scarce but increasing for some industries.”

Highlights from the Latest NFIB Jobs Report

• A seasonally adjusted net 15% of owners plan to create new jobs in the next three months, down 1 point from September. This marks the first decline since hiring plans started to increase in May 2025.
• In October, 27% of small business owners cited labor quality as their single most important problem, up 9 points from September and the highest level since the record high of 29% in November 2021.
• Labor quality reported as the single most important problem was the highest in the construction, transportation, and professional services industries, and lowest in finance and agriculture.
• Seasonally adjusted, a net 26% of small business owners reported raising compensation in October, down 5 points from September. A net 19% (seasonally adjusted) plan to raise compensation in the next three months, unchanged from September.

Keep up with the latest Washington state small business news at www.nfib.com or on X @NFIB_WA or on Facebook @NFIB.WA

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For over 80 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven association. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.

NFIB Washington
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