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economic crisis

More Small Business Jobs Lost in March

by Tim Berry on April 1, 2009

I guess this isn’t really news, because it’s pretty much what everybody expected. But still: The ADP National Employment report came out again today. The part that interests me most, the small business portion, shows yet another 284,000 jobs lost last month in the small-business portion of the economy–businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

That’s the worst yet. The number was 270,000 for February, and 232,000 the month before that.

How bad is it? I downloaded historical data to produce this a chart of small-business job growth and loss over the last 24 months:

You can click to get a larger view of that. The hard-to-read vertical axis shows job loss or gain in thousands, with a high of 78,000 jobs gained in November of 2007, and a low of 284,000 jobs lost last month.

Joel Prakken, chairman of macroeconomic advisors, said:

“Despite some recent indications that stock prices, consumer spending and housing activity may be bottoming out, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to remain very weak for at least several more months.”

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Small Business Owners: How Bad is the Credit Crunch?

by Tim Berry on February 10, 2009

Please, if you own a business, take this simple (only 8 questions) survey on the impact the credit crunch is having on your business. It’s asking you whether you’ve applied for a loan, was it approved, would you have applied if it weren’t for the economic crash, and so on.  I’d like to know, and of course I’ll share the results. Please click here to take the survey.

Thanks,

Tim Berry
President and Founder
Palo Alto Software

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Some Good News About Mortgages and Finance

by Tim Berry on December 31, 2008

Yesterday, during our weekly meeting at Palo Alto Software, sales guru David Shear, recently recruited out of a finance business sales spot, said he’d met with friends in the mortgage business over the holidays and “there’s a boom going on.”

“I heard it over and over. Swamped with refinance applications, money is flowing, all of that. One of them said he’d been working Saturdays just to keep up.”

So I say great, here’s a spot that’s jumping now, a sign of some segment responding to government bailouts and all. It’s not necessarily universal; these are Oregon and Washington people, and just a circle of friends. Still, let’s take the good news where we can find it.

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