Main Street Monday – Over 40% of Small Businesses have Job Openings as of Q2 Fiscal Year 22
May 23, 2022
Delaney Sexton
Contributing Editor
Main Street Monday – Over 40% of Small Businesses have Job Openings as of Q2 Fiscal Year 22
“New data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that the tightening labor market is disproportionately impacting smaller businesses,” reads a report from the Office of Advocacy. The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy recently released a report on Small Business Hiring Needs using data from the Small Business Pulse Survey and Job Openings by Employee Count. The report reveals that small businesses with anywhere from 1 to 249 employees have the highest number of job openings compared to businesses with greater numbers of employees.
Here are the statistics:
• The number of small businesses in need of new workers has almost doubled since August 2020. In August 2020, 23.4% of businesses cited labor needs, and in March 2022, that number increased to over 40%.
• In February 2022, there were about 11.3 million job openings, close to the December 2021 record of 11.4 million job openings. Prior to that, the pre-COVID peak number of job openings was reached in November 2018 with 7.6 million.
• The pre-COVID record number of job openings for small businesses with 50 to 249 was in January 2019 with 2.2 million job openings. At the end of 2021, this number reached more than 3 million openings.
• Small businesses and larger businesses experienced similar fluctuations in job openings, but at the start of 2022, job openings for the smallest of small businesses (1 to 9 employees) exceeded the number of job openings for larger businesses (250 to 999 employees).
• Although the highest number of job openings historically involves businesses with 50 to 249 employees, at the end of 2021 and the start of 2022 small businesses with 10 to 49 businesses have the highest number of job openings compared to every other size category at 3.1 million openings.
