Nevada small businesses hiring

Swing by the Life Time Fitness Center under construction in Summerlin, and you'll spot an endangered Las Vegas species: a contractor who's hiring.

Thanks to a steady stream of new work, including the 144,000-square-foot Life Time building and room renovations inside the Stratosphere and Station Casinos, Potter Electric Co. added three jobs in the first quarter of 2011, boosting its staff to 28. The company hired an electrician and two laborers to handle the an accelerated work schedule.

"We are seeing it pick up a little bit. The business is there to support the new hires," said Cathleen Beebe, Potter Electric's director.

A new report shows a similar hiring trend for a growing number of small businesses across Nevada.

The SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard shows that Nevada businesses with 100 or fewer workers continued to hire through March, even as small companies nationwide cut employees.

Small-business staffs in Nevada grew 0.2 percent from February to March. Only Oregon fared better, boosting its small-business jobs pool by 2.2 percent. Smaller operations countrywide slashed 2.2 percent from their office rosters from February to March.

If Nevada's growth rate keeps up for the next 12 months, the state's smaller concerns could add roughly 3 percent to their jobs base over the year.

March's jobs gain came on top of a 0.5 percent jump in February and a 0.3 percent improvement in January.

"In Nevada, you're seeing some rebound in the travel and leisure industry, and lots of businesses in the state are tagged to that industry," said Michael Alter, president and chief executive officer of Illinois-based SurePayroll, a paycheck-servicing company. "When your major industry rises, smaller businesses will rise, too."

SurePayroll's numbers also show that Nevada's average small-business paycheck declined, though Alter traced even that trend back to improved hiring.

Pay for small-business workers in Nevada dropped 2.3 percent in March, and now sits at an average of $31,502 a year. The decline isn't because pay rates are falling, Alter said. It's because businesses are confident enough in sales growth that they're hiring new workers rather than assigning overtime to existing employees. Less overtime means smaller paychecks.

Nevada's hiring improvements aren't limited to travel-related vendors. Alter said growth is also visiting companies serving the health care and technology sectors.

Expansion in both fields is benefiting Innovative Network Solutions in Las Vegas.

The information-technology consultant saw its sales slump about 50 percent during the recession, said Salvador Arango, vice president of operations.

But business picked up in December and January, as companies boosted purchases of tech-related equipment. Plus, Innovative Network Solutions moved into electronic medical records to serve health care providers who are going digital with patient files.

The company is 10 percent to 15 percent off of its pre-recession revenue peak, Arango said, and it met the improved sales with the recent hiring of two network technicians. The company just bought an office building as well.

"We've started seeing businesses willing to spend more money on IT and on their futures," said Arango, who added that Innovative Network Solutions could return to its high sales mark within six months.

Even professional hirers are hiring.

Stephanie Shirit, chief executive officer and founder of Las Vegas-based Resource Associates of Nevada, added an administrative worker to her staff of four in January. Shirit is seeing bigger demand not just for headhunting, but also for the workplace training and development the company offers to governments and businesses.

Still, Shirit said she's not ready to declare an end to Nevada's three-year hiring freeze.

Shirit said she believes the drop in average pay here comes not from more hiring, but from businesses cutting inessential expenses such as overtime.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at
jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.