Most small businesses are seeing a recovery in revenues, according to a recent report from Intuit. The study included revenue data from Intuit's Small Business Business Employment Index and from 200,000 small businesses that use QuickBooks software.
According to the analysis, while the professional, scientific and technical industries were virtually unaffected by the recession, the construction and real estate industries were the hardest hit and have seen little recovery since 2007.
The report showed that revenues for the professional services industry were on the rise through most of 2008, then crashed during the bank crisis in September 2008. However, the industry has seen a steady increase since mid-2009. Other industries, including accommodations, food and drinking services, and retail trade saw varying level changes since 2006, though not nearly to the extremes that other industries experienced.
Historical figures from the Small Business Employment Index show that employment started growing in late 2009 and has continued to slowly improve through the beginning of 2012. In April 2012, a 0.2 percent increase meant approximately 40,000 jobs were added, about the same growth reported in March.
While hourly employees saw a very slight decline in time worked in April, average monthly pay actually increased by 0.11 percent, the equivalent of about $3, amounting to an annual wage of about $32,000 a year.
Data from 80,000 small-business employers across the nation show that small-business employment is increasing across all U.S. Census divisions, with the greatest increase of 0.6 percent seen in the East South Central division. The smallest increase was in the Middle Atlantic region, which reported an employment increase of .09 percent. By state, Arizona reported the highest increase, 0.9 percent, while Pennsylvania was at the bottom of the list, with a loss of 0.5 percent.