Intuit has decided to leverage its considerable data to provide an anonymous, aggregate view of employment trends for small business in the United States.  The index focuses on small businesses that employ fewer than 20 people, which they say make up more than 87% of all American employers.  It pulls data from approximately 50,000 US businesses.  Intuit views small businesses as a sort of bellwether for overall employment, as they see small businesses hiring earlier than larger employers.

So what can we learn from the data this month?  In short, small business is on the comeback trail.  Employment in this space has been gradually trending upward since June, 2009 and accelerated a bit in February.  Although I have no reason to discount the statistical validity of 50,000 businesses, any representative index like this will have a margin of error.  The "acceleration" indicated in February still translates to a .2% rise in employment; in other words, we're not experiencing a surge in employment at this point.  Nonetheless, the upward curve seems to be steepening slightly, and I think the stats are positive, if muted.

Full Disclosure:  Foothills Financial Planning uses Intuit’s payroll service.  Although we’re perfectly happy with it, the point of this article is not to offer an opinion for or against the service.