The latest private data about this economy (we’re still in a government data drought) is from the National Federation of Independent Business’ small business optimism index.

In October, optimism declined a bit, though it’s still above average. Business owners are feeling less good about the labor market. Nearly a third of owners say they have jobs open that they can’t fill. And 27% cited labor quality as their single most important problem — the highest level since this time in 2021.

Of all the things on business owners’ to-do lists, hiring is not usually anyone’s favorite, said Aaron Sojourner, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

“Employers, especially small business employers, are perennially upset about their struggles to attract talent,” he said.

It’s partly because the smaller the business, the more intimately the business owner feels the frustrations that come with hiring. Also, the smaller the business, the harder it is to hire, period.

“They’re competing against larger employers who have bigger scale, more benefits,” and higher pay, Sojourner said

The kind of security bigger businesses can offer may be more attractive than usual to jobseekers now, because of all the layoff buzz that’s been happening.

“It’s a bit of a pretzel because you have two sides of the labor market that are kind of pushing in the same direction,” said Holly Wade, director of the research center at the NFIB.

One side is companies, which aren’t doing a lot of hiring. The other is prospective workers, who know companies aren’t doing a lot of hiring, so if they already have a job they’re less likely to be looking for a new one. And all of this makes it harder for businesses to attract strong applicants.

Industries that rely on immigrant workers are having a particularly hard time — like construction.

“We are also seeing some challenges in transportation, some service sector industries and manufacturing,” Wade said.

Sojourner at the Upjohn Institute stressed that this is just one report from one organization, with a narrow set of survey respondents. But if you add in data from ADP and Indeed and regional Federal Reserve banks?

“They all point to basically weakening in the labor market,” said Sojourner. “Slower job growth, higher unemployment rate, stagnant wages.”

And expectations among both firms and workers that it’s going to get worse.