A bump in hiring plans helped boost a measure of small business owners’ optimism in August.
The Small Business Optimism Index from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) moved up 1.7 points to 92.9. The increase more than made up for a 0.2-point decline in July.
August’s rising confidence came as a seasonally adjusted net 10 percent of business owners reported plans to increase employment over the next three months. That’s up five percentage points from July.
Still, the NFIB indicated that the optimism index was not completely comprised of good news.
“In spite of a terrible jobs report from the Labor Department and an increase in the number who view the current period as a terrible time to expand, small business owners continue to show their resilience,” NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg said in a news release. “However, nothing happened in August to really improve their outlook — economic news was uninspiring and mixed.”
The portion of business owners who view this as a good time to expand slipped in August. It fell one point to 4 percent, seasonally adjusted.
The NFIB is a nonprofit organization with members in 50 states and Washington, D.C. It randomly surveyed 736 of its member businesses in the month of August to develop the optimism index.
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com