La productividad de EE. UU. sigue aumentando; subvenciones para pequeñas empresas; posible prohibición de TikTok

Hey, everybody, it's Gene Marks. Happy New Year, and welcome to another season of the Week in Review, a Paychex Thrive Business podcast. Before diving into this week's topics, I took a quick scan of our 2024 shows and noticed how frequently we covered regulations.

As a small-business owner myself, I realized how important it is to stay on top of the updates and requirements, which is why I'm sharing that Paychex and its compliance team are covering the top regulatory issues of 2025 in a webinar on Jan. 15. That's going to include overtime rules, artificial intelligence, taxes, retirement and more.

So, check out the show notes to register or you can go to go.paychex.com/2025regs. That's go.paychex.com/2025Regs.

Now, let's get to the news, shall we? We have three news items to cover this week. The first comes from the Wall Street Journal, and it has to do with productivity in America. American workers’ productivity is up. Let me read a little bit from the article. Productivity in the U.S., as measured by how much the average worker gets done in an hour, has been on the rise. That matters because the faster that productivity grows, the faster the economy can grow, as well.

The success of the U.S. Economy and why it has grown so much compared with other countries over the past century and more has hinged on our productivity. Productivity – it's the total output of the economy divided by hours worked – rose 2% in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, according to the Labor Department. That marked the fifth quarter in a row with an increase of 2% or better.

In five years before the pandemic, there were only two such quarters. The gains in part reflect massive changes, according to the Journal, in the U.S. economy since the onset of COVID-19. Companies learned new ways of doing things and adopted new technologies with an upheaval in the labor market, move workers into more productive jobs.

Now, of course, according to the Journal, increased productivity isn't always good news for workers. One way that companies get more productivity is by laying off employees. New technologies such as AI can create new jobs and make workers more efficiently or take their jobs. Well, productivity is up. It's a good sign for the U.S. Economy. Might not be a great sign for some workers. Hopefully, they can adapt to the new era.

The next story comes from The Associated Press. Actually, I take it back. The next story comes from the Philadelphia Business Journal. In Philadelphia Business Journal, there's an article that was just published last week where a great list of potential grants that you can get for your business was laid out for you, and I just want to share a few of them for you.

For example, the National Science Foundation provides up to $200 million in grants for small businesses every year. In addition to that, Verizon offers a Small Business Digital Ready grant, the National Association for the Self-Employed offers growth grants up to $4,000, and DoorDash offers up to $10,000 in disaster relief grants to certain businesses that were in disaster-affected areas.

That is just one actually of many different types of grants that are being offered this year for your small business. Some of them are focused on minority businesses or female-owned businesses, depending on your region or depending on your industry. Strongly suggest you check out this article. It's in the Philadelphia Business Journal. It was published last week, and the author is Andy Medici. So, lots of grants coming available for businesses in 2025.

Finally, my friend May Anderson at The Associated Press had a great piece this past week all about TikTok and how small businesses are preparing for a very potentially disruptive end if TikTok does get outlawed by Congress. A looming TikTok ban could affect millions of small businesses that use the short video social media app to help them grow their business.

“Every day I get at least two to three customers that have seen me on TikTok, watch my videos, and wanted to become a customer,” said one business owner in The Associated Press's article.

Though TikTok has been around only since 2016, small-business owners use the platform in a variety of ways, from growing their customer base to advertising and marketing, as well as selling goods directly from their site.

The Justice Department has ordered the app's China-based parent, ByteDance, to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban by Jan. 19, citing security concerns.

So, what do you do? Well, according to May Anderson at The Associated Press, if a ban does occur, small businesses will have to migrate to other platforms to find their customers like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. Hopefully, if you are on TikTok and relying on it for new leads, or if you're providing services or business on that platform, you are already making your plans because if TikTok does get banned, it could have a big impact on your business.

So, you know with the new year comes potential new regulations that could impact your business and mine, including requirements around taxes, wage and hour issues such as the overtime rules, artificial intelligence and privacy, retirement and more. Paychex has it covered.

Don't forget to register for the Jan. 15 webinar on the top regulatory issues of 2025 at go.paychex.com/2025regs. That's go.paychex.com/2025Regs.

My name is Gene Marks. You've been watching this week's episode of the Week in Review. We look forward to catching you up on all the news that impacts your business next week. We'll see you then.

This podcast is property of Paychex Incorporated. 2025. All rights reserved.