CHART OF THE WEEK: Small Businesses Lost Fewer Jobs

Data from theADP Employment Report, a monthly measure of employment at U.S. businesses that use Advanced Data Processing’s payroll services, shows that small companies lost a lesser fraction of their workforce than big businesses during the Great Recession.

While large companies have yet to show much of a trend back to pre-recession employment levels, ADP’s figures show that small companies have begun to add back workers.  The smallest businesses–  those with one to 49 employees— lost the smallest proportion of workers, but medium sized companies— those with 50 to 499 workers— have shown a slightly faster pace of recovery in jobs.

The chart below shows the number of people employed each month in businesses with 1-49 employees, 50-499 employees and more than 499 employees (as a percentage of the number employed in November 2007, the month before the recession started).

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Editor’s note:  added the third paragraph above for clarification’s sake.

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