While some employers may be looking to expand their place of business thanks to favorable economic conditions they've experienced as of late, some are putting off hiring because they believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) will adversely impact their bottom line.
According to the survey, which was conducted by Gallup, of the 600 small business owners polled, approximately 41 percent said that they would delay their hiring plans due to reservations they had with how the ACA might impact their employee benefits offerings.
The participants were presented with several other questions pertaining to the ACA. For example, when asked if they'd pulled back on plans to grow their business, 38 percent of respondents said that they had. In addition, when they were queried about if they had considering dropping their health insurance coverage benefits altogether, nearly one in every four said they had weighed the possibility.
Some actions they had already taken. Gallup revealed that 37 percent of small business owners said they'd reduced the number of employees on their payroll or cut back on the amount of hours
given to part-time members of their staff.
Part-time and seasonal workers are potential staff members more business owners are in the midst of taking on with summer around the corner. According to a separate poll conducted by online search engine CareerBuilder, among 2,000 small business owners surveyed, approximately 29 percent said that they intended to hire seasonal workers this summer, which is about even with how many indicated as such last year when a similar study was done.
Of these, employers in the leisure and hospitality sector are the most likely to hire, with approximately 47 percent indicating that they would be doing so, the CareerBuilder survey shows.
