Taking the Temperature of Small Business: Owners in Nevada Say They’re Squeezed Between Soaring Health-Care Costs and Going Uninsured

After pay, heath insurance is the most important inducement small businesses use to recruit and keep workers. Yet more than half the 365 small businesses in a recent survey said their premiums rose as much as 10 percent this year.

Almost one in 10 told the Nation Association of Professional Employer Organizations they would dump their health coverage next year or are unsure about it.

"This is another wake-up call" said Shanon Hennesay, HR Director, Pay Pros Las Vegas. "Soaring health costs hit small businesses especially hard, and these businesses employ the cast majority of workers.

So this is an extremely troubling development, not just for small business's and their workers, but the entire economy."

Around 1996, more small companies began offering health benefits. Then, from 2000 ti 2005, the percentage dropped, says the Kaiser Family Foundation, from 68 percent to 59 percent - back to the same level as in 1996.

That's stabilized in the last two years. NAPEO's survey shows 71 percent will continue to insure their workers in the coming year - but another five percent remain unsure about continuing.

Cutting Benefits Beats Cutting Jobs

Media companies (such as newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, etc) have eliminated 41,000 jobs in the US (4.6% staff) since December of 2007 when the recession began. To learn more about why a PEO advises implementing alternative work schedules, read this article from the Denver Business Journal.