According to a survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), big businesses have actually been expanding and hiring more workers. According to the data derived from the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the sluggish pace of employment, small businesses are actually considered the "Achilles heel" for the US job market.  The JOLTS data showed that small businesses suffered the most by the recession. However, big companies have shown a stronger rate as far as hiring new staff.  

Companies with a total number of employees surpassing 5000 have increased their business at 0.4 between January 2011 and February 2012. As far as small companies with 10 to 50 employees, their businesses saw a surge of only 0.1 percent. The study also revealed that companies with fewer than 10 employees cut jobs and hiring.

The JOLTS data gives information into what affected the labor market in 2011, when it seems that employment was on the upswing, but now has somewhat declined.  At the beginning of 2011, the JOLTS study showed "net employment growth" for companies with under250 employees was expanding at approximately the same rate as big businesses.  As far as the rest of the year, the growth rates were around one-third less for small companies.

Economist Alan Krueger and Sarah Charnes, an economist at the Treasury Department, deduced from the information that " small-business employment was particularly hard hit during the recession, and that employment continued to contract at small businesses in the early phase of the recovery while it was increasing at medium-size and large establishments."  Krueger added that "small businesses responded differently to the financial crisis and subsequent recovery because they had lower fixed costs associated with hiring and laying off workers than large employers, and because small companies had less access to credit." Fortunately, a current report from JOLT has revealed that credit is becoming more readily accessible to small businesses in an effort to encourage growth.