Economy Loses Over Half a Million Jobs; What About Small Businesses?

Everyone is talking about the grim news from the Labor Department that the U.S. economy shed 533,000 nonfarm jobs in November.

How much of these losses are coming from small businesses, as opposed to the large companies like Citigroup, Mattel, and Circuit City, who are laying off many employees?

The jury is still out on that question.  Surveys aimed only on small firms show conflicting results. As my colleague Liz Wolgemuth reported earlier this week, ADP's survey of firms with under 50 employees found that employment decreased by 79,000 in November. But SurePayroll's Small Business Scorecard actually found small business hiring up 3.3 percent overall year-to-date, and up 0.26 percent in November. That's a meager increase, but a far cry from tens of thousands of lost jobs.

I think we'll have to wait for the dust to settle to really figure out what's going on.  In the meantime, there are still questions about whether it's a good cost-saving strategy for small firms to lay off employees. Click here for more on that issue.