
COLUMBIA — NFIB is celebrating 50 years of the Small Business Economic Trends survey, but small business owners are not feeling optimistic in the current economic environment.
The Optimism Index decreased 0.1 points in October to 90.7, marking the 22nd month below the 50-year average. The last time the Optimism Index was at or above the average was December 2021.
Tens of millions of American business owners have only one person on their payroll: themselves.
“This month marks the 50th anniversary of NFIB’s small business economic survey,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “The October data shows that small businesses are still recovering, and owners are not optimistic about better business conditions. Small business owners are not growing their inventories as labor and energy costs are not falling, making it a gloomy outlook for the remainder of the year.”
State-specific data is unavailable, but NFIB State Director Ben Homeyer said, “Main Street businesses here are dealing with the same issues as those in other states. Inflation is affecting prices across the board, and employers of all sizes are having a tough time finding and keeping good workers. That’s why it’s important for people to support local shops and restaurants on Small Business Saturday, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.”
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Key findings of the national survey include:
- Twenty-two percent of owners reported that inflation was their single most important problem in operating their business, down one point from last month.
- Owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months was unchanged from September at a net negative 43% (seasonally adjusted).
- A net negative 17% of all owners (seasonally adjusted) reported higher nominal sales in the past three months, down nine points from September and the lowest reading since July 2020.
- Forty-three percent (seasonally adjusted) of owners reported job openings that were hard to fill, unchanged from September and remains historically very high.
- Seasonally adjusted, a net 24% plan to raise compensation in the next three months, up one point from September.
- The frequency of reports of positive profit trends was a net negative 32%, down eight points from September.
- The net percent of owners who expect real sales to be higher increased three points from September to a net negative 10%. As reported in NFIB’s monthly jobs report, a seasonally adjusted net 17% of owners plan to create new jobs in the next three months. Overall, 61% of owners reported hiring or trying to hire in October. Of those hiring or trying to hire, 90% of owners reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.
The NFIB Research Center has collected Small Business Economic Trends data with quarterly surveys since the fourth quarter of 1973 and monthly surveys since 1986.
Survey respondents are randomly drawn from NFIB’s membership. The report is released on the second Tuesday of each month. This survey was conducted in October 2023.
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