Hiring down, salaries up: small businesses rely on creative strategies while adjusting to 2006 trends.For the small-business economy, last year ended on a mixed note with hiring down and salaries up, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. two scorecard indexes issued by SurePayroll, a Glenview, Illinois-based firm that offers payroll services to small businesses. As a result, small-business owners are using creative ways to stay productive without being threatened by higher salary costs. By analyzing the payroll data, hiring practices, and salary information from more than 18,000 small businesses, the SurePayroll Hiring Index reports small-business hiring decreased slightly (by 0.2%) in 2006, while the SurePayroll Pay Index shows salaries ended up 7.4% last year. However, SurePayroll President Michael Alter Michael Alter is an American businessman who is the president of his own company, the Alter Group, which is as of 2005, one of the nation's ten largest commercial real estate developers. In 2005, he became the principal owner and chairman of the WNBA team: the Chicago Sky. projects a modest increase in small-business hiring for 2007. The SurePayroll Pay Index for the end of December 2006 was 1,018, with the average small-business salary across the nation standing at an annualized annualized Of or relating to a variable that has been mathematically converted to a yearly rate. Inflation and interest rates are generally annualized since it is on this basis that these two variables are ordinarily stated and compared. rate of $31,292. Alter says rising salaries and labor scarcity will become growing issues for small-business owners, who must increasingly bid for talent against larger companies with deeper pockets. As a result, small businesses are doing more outsourcing in certain noncore areas instead of hiring hill-time employees. "Small-business owners are using contract workers or outsourcing certain jobs that aren't critical to them," says Alter. "[They outsource] jobs that are not worth justifying a frill-time employee, like accounting. The owner is doing it or using an accountant or bookkeeper on an hourly basis and outsourcing the payroll." Karen Hinds, president of Workplace Success Group, a business consulting firm Noun 1. consulting firm - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a fee consulting company business firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a in Waterbury, Connecticut, agrees that small-business owners need to be creative when finding good workers while keeping labor costs down. "We seek independent contractors A person who contracts to do work for another person according to his or her own processes and methods; the contractor is not subject to another's control except for what is specified in a mutually binding agreement for a specific job. ," says Hinds, who saves money by not having to pay benefits for them. "Then, when we find a good person, we pay them nicely to come in and just work for us." Additionally, Hinds uses college interns  This article or section is written like an .Please help [ rewrite this article] from a neutral point of view. Mark blatant advertising for , using . to "get basic tasks done for very little or no cost." You can easily set up internships by contacting the business department at your local college, says Hinds. And, if an intern intern /in·tern/ (in´tern) a medical graduate serving in a hospital preparatory to being licensed to practice medicine. in·tern or in·terne n. proves to be a good worker, you can offer him or her a job after graduation. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] |
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