WASHINGTON — New hiring rose in March to its highest level in more than a year while job openings moved up slightly, signs the job market is slowly improving.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers hired 4.24 million people in March, up from 4 million the previous month. Job openings edged up by 47,000 to 2.69 million.
But new hires and job openings remain well below pre-recession levels, as many employers are still cautious about adding to payrolls.
That is particularly true for small businesses. A separate survey by the National Federation of Independent Business found smaller companies were more optimistic in April about future economic trends than the previous month. But slightly more are still planning to cut jobs than create them, the NFIB said.
The group’s small business optimism index rose to 90.6 from 86.8, the highest since September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the financial crisis intensified. It was the first time in 18 months that the index topped 90. But the index rarely falls that low, and was below 90 for only one quarter in the steep 1980-82 recession.
“The level of the index is still very depressed,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, in a note to clients. “If the whole economy were small businesses, this survey suggests it would still be contracting at a 3 percent rate.”
Economists generally cite two reasons for the divide: Small companies are less likely to export than larger firms and therefore aren’t benefiting as much from improving economies in Asia and parts of Latin America.
Smaller companies are also more dependent on bank lending than larger firms, which can issue bonds in order to borrow.
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