The latest Principal Financial Well-Being Index found that small and mid-sized businesses have improved financially over the past year but that progress is tempered by concerns related to inflation, hiring, rising interest rates and the geopolitical climate. Small businesses have closed a gap between themselves and large businesses on financial improvement since last year. In March 2021, 72% of large businesses reported financial improvement compared with 35% of small businesses, a 37 percentage point gap. The latest index shows that that gap has been cut almost in half with 61% of small businesses reporting improvement. Employees and employers rated inflation as their number one concern in the survey. This has put pressure on businesses to increase wages and be creative in recruitment, but fewer small businesses, 28%, are reporting high job vacancy rates. Forty three percent of large businesses said they are experiencing high job vacancy. View more results from the index at this link.