US small company hiring plans slip in February

(Sharecast News) - Job openings at small companies in the US rose a bit last month, even as plans to hire continued to fall back, the results of a closely followed survey revealed. The National Federation of Independent Business's Small Business Economic Trends survey showed that 38% of all owners said they had job openings that they had been unable to fill.

That was up by three percentage points from January.

A seasonally adjusted net 15% of owners meanwhile were planning to create new jobs, which was three percentage points less than a month before.

The survey results were released a day ahead of the monthly non-farm payrolls reports for February.

Consensus for the NFP number was 158,000, although according to Bloomberg the so-called 'whisper number' was for a tally of 120,000.