Summary: Need help with PR? If you are looking for a great PR firm, you've found one. Walker Sands is a leading Chicago PR firm with a strong track record that makes it one of top national PR agencies..

Quarterly statistics from a national payroll company show that hiring among small businesses in Nevada has risen slightly in 2006.
(article continues below useful links)

Illinois-based SurePayroll's March 2006 Small Business Scorecard reveals that Silver State businesses with 100 or fewer workers have increased their staff numbers by 1.4 percent since the beginning of 2006, from 4.67 workers in January to 4.71 workers in March.

That job-formation rate is well below the overall job-growth rate in Nevada of 6.3 percent. But it topped the national staffing performance of small businesses: SurePayroll's numbers, which come from an analysis of more than 15,000 payroll clients nationwide, show that employment among small companies across the country fell 0.1 percent in the first three months of 2006.

The first-quarter numbers are also an improvement over all of 2005, when the state's small businesses reduced their staffs by 0.8 percent.

In addition, the average small-business annual paycheck is up in Nevada in the first quarter, from $25,523 in January to $25,692 in March. That 1.2 percent increase is lower than the 2.7 percent salary growth experienced nationwide, but an improvement on the 1.9 percent drop in wages that Nevada small businesses posted in 2005.

Michael Alter, president of SurePayroll, linked Nevada's healthier small companies to a thriving tourism sector.

"The entertainment business in Las Vegas is booming," Alter said. "Everybody is going to Las Vegas, and there's a lot of money coming into the Nevada economy. That's driving small companies to grow and build their business."

Las Vegas is also experiencing a lull in new resort openings thus far in 2006, and Alter said that could be easing the competition for workers that beset small businesses in 2005.

When the 2,700-room Wynn Las Vegas opened in April 2005 with 9,500 employees, many small businesses had trouble competing for employees. Caesars Palace upped the pressure when its 949-room Augustus Tower opened in September.

Yet even the reprieve from resort openings hasn't driven substantial increases in hiring.

Alter said the nature of economic expansion in Nevada could be hindering smaller operations.

"The industries driving a lot of the growth in Nevada are gaming, entertainment and construction, and those (sectors) tend to be dominated by larger businesses," Alter said. "So you would expect to see small businesses lag as bigger (companies) grow."

Relatively slow growth has been the case at BCNS Technologies, a computer-maintenance and network-engineering company in Henderson.

BCNS has eight workers on staff; since the year began, company officials have hired just one worker, who's an intern.

What's more, the company will "hold the line" on hiring for the rest of 2006, with only one part-time position scheduled to come online in the foreseeable future, said Managing Partner Robert Mumm.

A key hurdle to expansion for BCNS: The company competes for employees directly with information-technology departments in major hotel-casinos.

When hiring, Mumm must also contend with a growing high-tech sector in Southern Nevada.

And an improving economy outside the state means unemployed workers no longer have to venture to Las Vegas for a fresh start.

"Talent in the tech industry is in extremely high demand right now," Mumm said. "Locally, it's really tough to find people, and we haven't recruited outside the area since last year. A lot of companies are hiring tech people."

Tech businesses aren't alone in their slow hiring pace, but not all small companies are struggling to find workers.

KIA Insurance of Las Vegas hasn't hired any new employees since July 2002, said President Bob Bishop, because technological improvements have allowed the business to grow without supplementing its work force.

"With automation in our industry, more business is being done over the Internet," said Bishop, whose company has nine employees.

"That has given a lot of our peers the opportunity to grow financially without having to increase manpower," he said. "That's just the wave of the future."

Bishop said KIA would not hire this year unless one of its existing workers leaves the company.

At Assurnet, an insurance brokerage in Las Vegas, the staff roster has held steady at five workers since early 2005.

Susann Boylan, the agency's secretary and treasurer, said Assurnet has expanded by increasing the number of hours its employees work. A part-time employee who put in 20 hours a week has moved up to 30 hours a week, and managers will shift a second part- time worker into full-time status by the end of 2006.

Boylan was noncommittal when asked about boosting employee counts by year's end.

"We work very efficiently, and we prefer to use the people we have to work more hours and give them more benefits," Boylan said. "That adds more loyalty than just bringing on additional people at a lower rate."

Hiring remains brisk in some sectors of the local economy.

The Korte Co., a general contractor that is building the second phase of the District in Green Valley Ranch, grew by 10 percent in the first quarter to a total of about 35 employees. Greg Korte, president of the St. Louis company's Las Vegas division, said he'll add four more workers by the end of May, and he expects to end 2006 with 43 workers. He plans to bring on both construction workers and administrative staff.

But with record numbers of new homes under construction locally, and with nonstop building along the resort corridor, Korte has faced serious competition for workers. His formula for attracting labor while his competitors struggle to fill jobs is simple: Head to the Midwest, where the economy is less vibrant, and recruit fresh college graduates.

"It's a little bit tougher to find experienced personnel in their upper 20s and 30s, and to get them here once they've started establishing a family in other parts of the country," Korte said.

Other companies also report hiring successes amid a tight labor market.

Mumm managed to score an information-technology staff member from The Venetian in 2005 by focusing on the employee's desire to trade in life at a megaresort in favor of working at a "boutique" business.

And when an employee left Assurnet in May, Boylan called a guidance counselor at a nearby high school and explained Assurnet's needs for a part-time replacement. They sent over the "perfect" candidate, Boylan said. The employee will soon earn her insurance- sales license and begin working full-time for Assurnet.

"You've got to be resourceful out there, you really do," Korte said.

"You've got to focus on your employees and create a good, friendly and positive work environment."

Copyright (c) 2006. Las Vegas Review Journal.