Gusto’s analysis reveals that missed payrolls among U.S. small businesses surged by over 50% between 2019 and 2025, a trend largely driven by inflation, high interest rates, and thin cash reserves. While these failures typically stem from temporary liquidity gaps rather than terminal business failure, they act as a "breaking point" that triggers lasting employment declines. Data shows that affected firms often reduce their headcount by 8% to 10% within six months, with staffing levels rarely recovering even two years later. The report highlights a widening liquidity divide, as stronger companies have expanded their cash runways while vulnerable firms continue to operate within days of a crisis. Ultimately, the research suggests that targeted financial interventions, such as faster credit access and better cash-flow tools, could prevent these temporary shortfalls from becoming permanent economic damage for millions of workers.

To close out 2025, many small businesses did something they hadn’t been able to do as confidently in recent years: share their success with employees. New data from Gusto shows that year-end bonuses rose sharply in both size and reach, with average bonuses jumping more than 11 percent and a growing share of workers receiving a payout. These gains were broad-based across industries, from tourism and entertainment to professional services and tech, pointing to underlying strength in the small-business economy even as uncertainty lingered. In this episode, we’ll break down what’s behind the surge in bonuses—and what it tells us about how small businesses are entering 2026.

The Gusto Small Business Jobs Report for December 2025 highlights a significant recovery in hiring among American small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

After a period of stagnation, small businesses added approximately 47,900 net new jobs, signaling a return to stable economic conditions as the new year approaches.

In this episode we walk through the latest December numbers on small-business hiring from Gusto.

As we look forward to 2026, our economists took stock of the top small-business stories we saw unfold this year, and gathered them into 5 key trends we believe will help reshape the nation’s small-business economy in the coming year.

Here are the 5 big trends we expect to shape the small-business economy in 2026 and beyond. Full analysis here: https://gusto.com/resources/gusto-insights/2026-smb-predictions

Here's the latest breakdown on the numbers for America's small-business economy for November 2025 from the Gusto Small Business Jobs Report -- a real-time view of hiring among the 400,000+ U.S. small businesses on Gusto.

The TL;DR: Hiring among America’s small businesses was essentially flat in November, posting a modest -2,000 net job loss for the month — a sharp rebound from October’s revised decline of -37,900 jobs, but well below the 12-month average of 43,500 jobs added by U.S. small-businesses with less than 50 employees.

However, below the surface there are pockets of strong hiring among small businesses in November, including health care, construction, and wholesale trade. By contrast, most job losses were led by small businesses in retail, hospitality, and professional services.

Gen Z’s white-collar careers are running into a bottleneck: hiring for 20- to 28-year-olds continued to remain flat this year, leaving young professionals competing for a limited number of openings.

With each new class of graduates entering a market that isn’t expanding, early-career workers are finding it harder to land roles that match their skills, or to move up once they’re in the door.

In this analysis, Gusto's Senior Economist Nich Tremper unpacks the data on entry-level hiring in white-collar fields. Full study here: https://gusto.com/resources/gusto-insights/gen-z-hiring-2025

An affordable and secure retirement is part of the dream of many U.S. workers. However, nearly 56 million U.S. workers lack access to an employer-sponsored savings plan.

To expand access, Congress created the Small Employer Pension Program -- a federal tax credit that helps small businesses start a retirement plan. But uptake has been low.

What happens when we show personalized tax credit savings estimates to small business owners? Answer: It has a huge impact on uptake of the tax credit.

This episode walks through a study from Gusto Insights showing that the simple act of nudging small businesses led to $31 million of savings for U.S. small business owners.

Small businesses in America today face a paradox. On paper, the economy looks strong: GDP is growing at nearly 4%, consumer spending is healthy, and inflation is moderating. Yet business owners are seeing something different on the ground – weakening demand, falling consumer confidence, and a labor market that has cooled dramatically from its red-hot pace of recent years.