"The Optimism Index barely budged in January"
- NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg
Small-business owners' confidence continues to drag, the report by the National Federation of Independent Business showed Tuesday. Even despite higher taxes kicking in last month, a gauge of confidence among small businesses rose 0.9 points to 88.9 in January, up from 88.0 in the prior month. Analysts, however, expected a reading of 89.0, even as confidence among small business owners remains close to record lows. In the meantime, small businesses are slowly increasing their demand for labour, as the new-jobs subindex rose 2 points to 3% last month, while the subindex covering hard-to-fill job openings surged 2 points to 18%.
"The Optimism Index barely budged in January. The only good news is that it ‘budged' up, not down. If small businesses were publicly traded companies, the stock market would be in shambles. While corporate profits are at record levels as a share of GDP, small businesses are still struggling to turn a profit," said NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg.
"With the dismal news that our economy actually contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012, it isn't any wonder that more small firms expect their real sales volumes to fall, few have plans to invest in new inventory, and hardly any owners are expanding or hiring.
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