has stayed below the historical average for nearly two years now."Right now, it's a lot of frustration of not being able to take advantage of sales opportunities because of the tight labor market," said Holly Wade, NFIB’s executive director of research. "Their inability to fill open positions and still a lot of inflation pressures out there for small firms.
Business owners feel like they can't operate to their full capacity because of a lack of staff or high turnover, which saps time and resources with a constant cycle of training.The competitive labor market is putting pressure on businesses to increase what they’re willing to pay, but small companies find it difficult to offer competitive benefits.“There's no economy of scale when it comes to the small firm, and they really struggle with that,” Wade said.
That’s made borrowing more expensive for everyone, from a family trying to buy a home to a person trying to build an expansion for their small business. “Whether that's because of higher interest rates, and that that will put more of a strain on small businesses, anticipating a slowdown in the economy, which hasn't materialized, thank goodness, but that's a concern of theirs,” she continued. “But then also the frustration of the labor market and inflation, and that they feel very little, if any, relief on those two fronts over the last year.