U.S. Small Businesses Are Shelving Hiring Plans at a Record Pace

(Bloomberg) -- The nation’s small businesses, which are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus-related shutdowns in the U.S., have pulled the plug on hiring plans at a record pace over the past two months.

A National Federation of Independent Business report on Thursday showed a net 1% of small-business owners in April expected to create new jobs, down 8 percentage points after a 12 percentage-point plunge a month earlier. That’s the biggest two-month slide in monthly records back to 1986.

The bad news for American workers doesn’t stop there. The report also showed in April that a net 7% anticipate boosting compensation in coming months. That’s a drop of 9 percentage points, the most on record, from March.

The Labor Department’s jobs report on Friday is projected to show payrolls declined 21.7 million last month, the sharpest downturn in the post-World War II era, while the unemployment rate is forecast to jump to 16%, the highest since the Great Depression.

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