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The
survey by the small business referral network Alignable shows a
majority of small business owners in the U.S. said they are not
hiring at this time, and some say they will be laying off
workers.
Head researcher Chuck Casto says 60% of Illinois small
businesses that responded now have a hiring freeze. They also
have the second highest percentage of businesses who say they
will be laying off staff.
“Illinois is second only to Florida in having the highest layoff
rate,” Casto said. “Eleven percent of the small businesses say
they are planning layoffs as early as this month.”
Almost half of those who stopped hiring said they were seeking
workers earlier this year, but stopped because of high payroll
expenses, recessionary fears and reduced revenues.
The top three sectors that have halted hiring are real estate,
automotive and health care.
One sector that has experienced a worker shortage since the
beginning of the pandemic is restaurants. Casto says even they
are being affected by the current economic climate.
“We saw a huge jump from 38% to 55% with the restaurants, and
the restaurants are laying off 9% of their workers on top of
that,” Casto said.
Only 23% of small business owners said they have fully recovered
from the pandemic, the worst recovery rate in over a year, down
2% from July and down 20% from December 2021.
“With all of the numbers going up in terms of people not hiring,
that really is quite a sign that people are scaling back,” said
Casto.
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