Survey: Small businesses maintain holiday bonuses

Small businesses with 1-10 employees began hiring again for the first time since August, and these businesses are giving the same amount of bonus money as last year, when hiring was down, according to the November 2014 Glenview-based SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard.

November's survey found that 52 percent of small businesses are giving bonuses and 89 percent of those bonuses will be the same or better than a year ago. The numbers are nearly identical to last year's survey results, with the exception a 0.1 percent uptick in hiring this November. Last year, hiring was down 0.1 percent in the month of November.

"You might have expected small business owners to give less holiday or year-end bonuses because they're bringing on more people, however they've been telling us profitability is up and that seems to have allowed them to maintain their bonuses," said SurePayroll General Manager Andy Roe.

Only 38 percent of respondents said the general state of the economy and other macroeconomic factors caused them to give less in bonus money. Again, roughly the same as last year.

"That tells us while the economy hasn't gotten tremendously better for small business owners, it at least hasn't gotten any worse," said Roe.

Small business owners' level of optimism about the economy perked up to 65 percent in November, after dropping to 62 percent in October.

Meanwhile, hiring was up throughout most of the country, increasing 0.2 percent in the Midwest; 0.1 percent in the South and 0.7 percent in the West. The Northeast saw hiring drop 0.7 percent. In terms of the average paycheck, it fell 0.4 percent nationally, which is common when hiring rises. Regionally, the average paycheck was flat in the Northeast and South; down 1.0 percent in the West and down 0.6 percent in the Midwest.

The number of 1099s went from 6.59 percent last month to 6.57 percent in November.

SurePayroll is a provider of online payroll services to small businesses nationwide.