Intuit Indexes: Small Business Employment Declined Since May; Revenues Fall For Seventh Consecutive Month

The latest edition of Intuit Inc.’s (Nasdaq: INTU) Small Business Revenue and Employment Indexes shows an ongoing decline in small business employment since May. Intuit has revised the Employment Index to provide a better measure of employment for U.S. firms with fewer than 20 employees. Methodology for the Revenue Index is based on a separate model and remains unchanged.

The October Employment Index indicates that small business employment decreased by 0.05 percent, at an annualized decline of 0.6 percent, equating to approximately 10,000 fewer jobs than in September. Based on October’s numbers and the latest national employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Intuit revised downward the previously reported September employment rate to a decline of 0.06 percent, also a monthly decrease of approximately 10,000 jobs.

The Intuit Small Business Employment Index model has added four main inputs to the methodology and has been revised to align with the quarterly Business Employment Dynamics data from BLS. The new inputs include an expanded set of Intuit small business payroll customers and monthly BLS private payroll, construction payroll and self-employment data. The BLS total payroll data used in the previous model will continue to be a data input in the new model. Detailed information on the new index methodology can be found at index.intuit.com.

“The employment and revenue indexes have long been the only source of near real-time employment and revenue data for the smallest of small businesses,” said Susan Woodward, the economist who worked with Intuit to create the indexes. “Now that Intuit has added new data inputs to its methodology and more than doubled its anonymized sample size of payroll customers from approximately 80,000 to 170,000, we’re in an even better place to report on the growth of U.S. small businesses.”

Small Business Employment Index

The October decrease in employment continues a mild decline that began in May. From March 2010 to May 2012, small business employment grew by 150,000 jobs, totaling 19.9 million. Since May, small business employment has fallen by 65,000 jobs, bringing total recovery to 85,000 small business jobs.

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