Help Not Wanted

Small business, the traditional engine of job creation in the U.S., is out of gas.

More than 75 percent of small-business owners surveyed by Harris Interactive don’t plan to add any employees over the next year. The good news is that 64 percent plan to keep the same number of employees they have now; the bad news is that 12 percent plan to reduce their workforce.

The survey was conducted for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and included both Chamber members and small-business owners who aren’t Chamber members. The results were released today at the Chamber’s Jobs for America Summit. Economic uncertainty was the main reason why small businesses aren’t hiring, the survey found, followed by lack of sales, uncertainty about what policymakers in Washington, D.C., will do next, and the requirements of the new health care law.

When asked about overall challenges facing small businesses, economic uncertainty once again was No. 1. But it was closely followed by the federal government’s growing debt and budget deficits. The debt issue is causing more uncertainty for small businesses than any other issue in Washington, including regulations and taxes.

Big businesses are bothered by Washington’s failure to resolve the debt issue, as well.

“It is really time to get this behind us,” GE chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt told the Jobs Summit.

So other than reining in deficits, what do small-business owners want from Washington? “Get out of the way,” said 79 percent versus 14 percent percent who said they wanted a helping hand from Washington.

That sentiment was echoed by Jessica Johnson, vice president of Johnson Security Bureau in New York City, who was a panelist at the Chamber’s Jobs Summit. “It would be helpful if our politicians could figure out a way to stay out of our way,” she said.

Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s president and CEO, outlined a series of steps Washington could take to help the private sector create jobs: pass pending trade agreements; make it easier for foreigners to come to the U.S. as tourists and business investors; invest in highways, airports, and other infrastructure; increase domestic energy production; and reform a regulatory system that is “killing American jobs.”

Immelt, who chairs the President’s Jobs and Competitiveness Council, agreed with many of Donohue’s suggestions. “Jobs metrics should be included in all of our policy thinking,” he said.

But Immelt said the business community itself needs to take more of a leadership role in creating jobs. “Businesses have to speak with a louder and more consistent voice” on ideas that would drive competitiveness, he said. It’s not enough just to speak out against government policies; companies can only be at their best “when they’re at peace with the government,” Immelt said. “Anger doesn’t create jobs. Teamwork does.”

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Kent Hoover is the Washington bureau chief for bizjournals.