Last week, the Labor Department released its quarterly Business Employment Dynamics data for the second quarter of last year. During that quarter, gross job gains from opening and expanding businesses totaled 6.9 million, while gross job losses from closing or contracting businesses totaled 6.2 million. For the quarter, we saw a net job gain of 700,000 jobs or roughly 234,000 jobs per month. Among the various firm size classes, net job growth for microbusiness employers with fewer than five employees was relatively low, coming in at a net 20,000 jobs gained for the quarter. What is particularly notable about microbusiness employers is that it is the only firm size class in which the bulk of job gains come from opening establishments and the bulk of job losses are generated by firm closures. Even during periods of strong economic growth, microbusiness employers tend to have the most dynamism evident in this kind of churn — that is, both in job gains and in job losses.

The big job creators for this quarter were small businesses with between 20 and 49 employees, which generated 127,000 jobs on net, and firms with between 100 and 249 employees, with 124,000 net new jobs. The largest firms, with over 1,000 employees, generated a respectable 113,000 net new jobs over the quarter. All of these jobs numbers would seem to indicate that the labor market is in better shape than the raw employment situation numbers released each month by the Labor Department would have us believe. Overall, it looks as if microbusiness employers have resumed their usual spot in the employment dynamics of the U.S. economy. Generally, they account for two-thirds of job gains, mostly from opening establishments, and for two-thirds of job losses from closures. They are almost back to those numbers.