Financial Statements as Scandal Sheets?

The survey respondents included 558 HR professionals surveyed by SHRM and 663 corporate executives surveyed by the CareerJournal.com Web site.

Small Businesses, Smaller Expectations
If small businesses are the engine of economic growth, then coporate America looks like it will continue to sputter along like a late-model Yugo on black-market ethanol.

Indeed, most small business owners expect a sluggish economy for the rest of the year, according to a recent survey released by Partner America, a venture between the U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Management Services. The survey also revealed that an overwhelming majority of small business owners don't expect to add new employees.

Specifically, 76 percent of small businesses owners don't expect to expand their payrolls in 2002. Another four percent plan to cut staff this year. This is in stark contrast to 2001, when small business owners hired 850,000 workers.

One reason for this reluctance to hire: While 79 percent of those surveyed believe the economy will emerge from the recession by the end of this year, 42 percent said sales will stay the same as last year. 41 percent think their sales will increase only slightly.

"This economic environment is creating exceptional challenges for small business," said Stamford, Conn., Mayor Dannel Malloy, co-chair of the USCM Small Business/Partner America Task Force, in a press release. "To help, we must provide disaster loans and other sources of capital to small businesses impacted by the September 11 attacks and the current recession, allow small businesses to write-off more for their investments in capital improvements and substantially expand small business tax credits for recruitment and workforce development, which is a tremendous concern for small business."

Only 35 percent of the small businesses managers surveyed think the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts have had a positive impact on their businesses. Over have say the rate cuts have had no impact. Twenty-four percent say their cash requirements will increase this year, while 65 percent say their cash requirements will stay the same.

When it comes to technology investments, 71 percent said their investment in technology will stay the same this year. Only a quarter of the respondents project an increase in IT spend.

The Small Business Owner Economic Outlook Survey was conducted by the polling firm StategyOne and included telephone interviews with 200 small business owners across the country.

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