Metro Atlanta small businesses continued to buck a negative trend in hiring among small firms nationwide in September, a new survey shows.
Small employers here increased their hiring by 0.3 percent last month, according to the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard.
That was less than the 0.8 percent gain registered in August but better than the 0.2 percent decline seen across the U.S. in September.
Small businesses in metro Atlanta have expanded their payrolls every month at least since the summer of 2011, when SurePayroll began to break down its monthly report for each of the 35 largest metro markets.
The Small Business Scorecard reflects hiring and pay data from 35,000 small businesses across the country that use SurePayroll’s services. Businesses measured in the survey have an average size of eight employees.
While hiring improved again in metro Atlanta, the overall mood among small business owners nationwide plummeted in September. The survey found optimism among them down to 45 percent from 60 percent in August, which SurePayroll CEO Michael Alter called “troubling.”
