The Associated Industries Business Confidence Index rose last month to 57.1 point on a scale where 50 is considered neutral. That’s up from 54.8 points in March and 56.1 points a year ago in April 2011.
SPRINGFIELD – Economists say the recession ended back in June 2009, but 41 percent of Massachusetts employers, including 58 percent of businesses with 10 or fewer employees, say we are still mired in it.
A lesser number of all employers, 32 percent, said the recession is over but this pattern of slow and uneven growth is the new normal, according to results of the monthly business confidence survey released Tuesday by the statewide business lobbying group Associated Industries of Massachusetts. Just 22 percent of all employers said, in the words of the survey question, “we are still working our through a recovery that will eventually lead to stronger growth and job creation.”
“I’m not saying its over,” said David C. Southworth, president of Sourthworth Co. in Agawam a manufacturer of high-quality paper and envelopes. “It’s still a pretty challenging environment.”
Southworth said his company is seeing growth in some product niches but the overall market for paper is not growing. With 160 employees, he estimates he replaces only about half the employees who leave the company through the regular course of attrition.
Andre Mayer, senior vice president for communications and research at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said gloominess on the part of smaller business doesn’t bode well for job creation . Those companies, ones with fewer than 10 workers now, are typically the biggest sources of new jobs in an economic recovery.
Economists measure the end of a recession as the low point in the nation’s gross domestic product, often thought of as bottom of the trough, Mayer said.
In April, the Associated Industries Business Confidence Index rose to 57.1 point on a scale where 50 is considered neutral. That’s up from 54.8 points in March and 56.1 points a year ago in April 2011.
At 57.1 points, the confidence level is at its highest point since August 2007, before the recession hit, said Michael D. Goodman, associate professor and chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
But Goodman said economic good news seems to be concentrated in and around Boston. Also, trouble with the European economies or federal budget cuts could derail Massachusetts’ recovery.
Mayer said his survey says 36 percent of all employers reporting that they have expanded their staff in the last six months. Just 18 percent have cut staff with the remainder standing pat.
Over the next six months, 31 percent plan to add staff and 10 percent plan to cut employees.
In April 36 percent said they have added in last six months compared with 18 percent reported having dropped
“We are not seeing a surge in job creation ,” Mayer said. “That’s what we would all like to see.”
Katherine E. Putnam, president and CEO of Package Machinery Co. in West Springfield, said companies put holds on plans to buy machinery in 2011, but those deals are getting completed now.
“I’m just seeing more velocity,” Putnam said.
She said she’d expand to ten employees if she could find the right candidate.
“We can’t find qualified machinists,” Putnam said.