What’s Behind Optimism? Age Limits or Discrimination? AI Equals More Work?

[Gene Marks, host]

Hey everybody, it's Gene Marks, and welcome to this week's episode of the Paychex Thrive Week in Review. This is where we take news out of the week that impacts your small business in mind, and we talk about it just a little bit.

But listen, before we get started, it's mid-August and that the college crowd that makes a part of your summertime workforce is likely heading back to campus, right? So, it's gonna leave you with shifts to fill and more hiring to do. This is a predictable challenge and one Paychex is prepared. to help you resolve.

The Summer Planning Guide for Small Business lays out steps to tackle seasonal staffing, onboarding, and mid-year compliance while taking a closer look at the HR tools already at your disposal that help manage the complexity.

Check out go.paychex.com/summer for more details. Just because the calendar is about to flip doesn't mean you have to lose any time in running your business. That's go.paychex.com/summer. We'll have the link in the notes to this show.

All right, let's get to the news, shall we? The first comes from the National Federation of Independent Businesses and their monthly survey. Small business confidence strengthened in July with the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rising 2.4 points to its highest level since August 2025 and above its 52-year average of 98. It is at 99.8 right now.

Eight of the indexes’ 10 components improved, led by a sharp increase in hiring plans. A net 20% of owners expect to create jobs during the next three months, the strongest reading since October 2022. However, finding qualified workers remains a major problem, with 36% reporting job openings they could not fill and 27% naming labor quality availability as their biggest challenge.

Inflation concerns persist, of course, but they eased with 14% identifying inflation as their top problem. Only 14%, that's down seven points from June. Planned capital spending also improved with 25% expecting to make capital outlays over the next six months.

Despite stronger optimism, of course, uncertainty remains elevated, particularly over expansion and investment decisions.

So, let's just sum this up here. Overall small business confidence now is the highest since it's been in the past year. Job creation is the strongest reading since October of 2022, and only 14% of those surveyed now identify inflation as their top problem. That's now I'm whopping seven percent, and capital spending is also improved; 25% – that’s one in four business owners – expect to make capital outlays over the next six months.

Now, this is not just the National Federation of Independent Businesses. I was on TV over the weekend talking about a number of surveys and reports coming out from the U.S. Chamber and Bank of America and One West Bank and you know quite a few others, Fiserv, Intuit, all showing improvements in small business revenue, growth, and also optimism for the remainder of the year.

Now, again, you can't make a blanket statement about all small businesses. It's a big country. There's 34 million of us. Some of us have more challenges than others, some of us are in different regions, serve different industries, have different unique types of problems that we have. So, I get that. But, for the most part, a majority of small business owners seem to be having a pretty good year with optimism pretty strong heading into the final part of 2026.

Our next story comes from Memphis, and it's an interesting little tale. By the way, this is from yahoo.com. A Memphis restaurant is taking the unusual step of restricting admission to customers 30 years old and older. Prive, it's called, or PRIVE, an upscale restaurant and lounge serving American and soul food, previously required customers to be at least 21, but then they raised the minimum age effect of August 1. Like that wasn't good enough for them. Guests must now present government-issued identification before entering. Management said the change was intended to enhance the dining experience, although it did not publicly attribute the decision to any particular incident. The restaurant has reportedly been associated with multiple police calls and violent episodes in recent years, including a 2023 incident in which two people were killed.

Some customers have welcomed the new rule, saying an older clientele could create a calmer, more relaxed atmosphere. Tennessee generally allows privately owned businesses and restaurants to establish age restrictions as long as their policies are applied consistently. The policy has generated considerable attention because of its unusually high minimum age.

So, should your business or your restaurant restrict people under a certain age? Maybe 30 is not enough. I mean I mean, really. I mean I have kids that are 30. I'm thinking they should might want to consider 35 or 40. But again, that's up to them. You know, is that something that you should be considering for your restaurant as well?

You know, age discrimination, you know, could be looked at as any other type of discrimination as well. So, I can understand why some people might have a problem with that. I don't think this law this restaurant has been seeing any lawsuits yet, but it would certainly make for an interesting, you know, legal discussion as to whether or not they're really allowed to … I mean really, what difference if you're d disallowing somebody under a certain age, as opposed to their I don't know, their sexual orientation or their religion or their color of their skin? I mean, isn't that all kind of discrimination as well?

Listen, if you are thinking of doing something like this, you better be really careful. Talk to a labor attorney, talk to a business attorney as well, get lots of advice as to whether or not doing something like this could subject you to not only discrimination lawsuits, but also some pretty bad PR, depending on who you're not allowing into your place of business.

I get it, a lot of different businesses have their own restrictions, their own requirements and, you know, they don't want certain people of a certain, you know, younger people, for example, disrupting things. This restaurant has some violent in this incidents that it reported. I get that. But just be careful because the minute that you start limiting the types of people that you can do business with and not giving them the option or the choice, you are subjecting yourself to greater scrutiny, both in the media and potentially in the courts. So, just keep that in mind.

Alright, in this week's AI News, tech leaders are saying that AI means less work, but their staff kind of disagrees. This is a report from the BBC. Technology executives frequently argue that artificial intelligence will make employees so productive that people could eventually work shorter weeks. The current experience inside some leading AI companies suggests the opposite, however.

Workers and former workers interviewed by the BBC describe intense schedules at companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, with some periods of accelerated development pushing workloads towards 70 to 90 hours per week.

AI tools can allow employees to complete individual tasks faster, but companies often respond by increasing expectations, assigning additional work, individual tasks, accelerating product development cycles.

The result is a productivity paradox. Instead of converting AI-generated efficiency into additional leisure time, businesses may simply produce more with fewer workers. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has similarly emphasized AI's ability to enable smaller teams to accomplish substantially more. The article suggests that AI alone will not determine whether employees eventually work less. Company policies and how productivity gains are distributed will ultimately determine the outlook.

So, listen, I mean, take it from the people that are producing these AI tools: OpenAI, Anthropic, you know all the big tech companies, do you see them, you know, you know, workers working less? I mean, people on their development teams have been losing their jobs because AI is doing more development work on behalf of those workers. But the remaining workers, well, these companies apparently are working them pretty hard: 70 to 90 hours a week.

There still is a big disconnect between what AI will provide for the workplace and what it's actually doing. Some people were thinking it's going to eliminate a bunch of jobs. Other people say that's probably not going to be the case. Tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg says, “No, it's not going to eliminate jobs.” It's just going to create smaller companies with smaller teams, with people that can just do a lot more using AI tools. They'll still be working. They'll just be working in lots of different places. We will see.

My take on it is more like Mark Zuckerberg's. Every month we are seeing anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 new business applications filed. This has been going on since COVID. I think this is going to continue and really explode over the next few years. As a lot of people will be leaving corporate jobs or being asked to leave corporate jobs, forming their own companies, working with other teams, going to smaller and smaller companies, lots of small businesses and startups out there that will be able to perform work more efficiently on behalf of their customers – both consumers and corporations – but they'll be leaning heavily on AI to do just that.

So, I don't, I personally don't think that AI is going to cause a big loss of jobs. I think it's going to create an increase in opportunities, and those opportunities will be shared by lots of startups and entrepreneurs who will be leveraging these tools and hiring people to leverage these tools to do whatever it is that they are going to be doing.

My name is Gene Marks, and you have been watching or listening to this week's episode of the Paychex Thrive Week in Review.

Remember, if you need some help preparing for the next season or your seasonal business, check out Paychex's Summer Planning Guide. Go to go.paychex.com/summer. Please remember to follow us on YouTube and also on your favorite podcast platform, and if you need any help or tips or advice in running your business, sign up for a Paychex Thrive newsletter. Go to paychex.com/thrive. Thanks again for watching and listening. We will see you again next week with news that impacts your business. Take care.

My name is Gene Marks, and you've been watching or listening to the Paychex Thrive Week in Review podcast. A few things to take away. First of all, if you are in need of HR or payroll help in your business, consider Paychex. Go to paychex.com/meetpaychex. That's P-A-Y-C-H-E-X.com forward slash M-E-E-T-P-A-Y-C-H-E-X. Please follow this podcast on your podcast platform or on YouTube if you are enjoying the content so you stay up to date on our latest episodes.

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Hope you found this information helpful. I'll be back with you next week with more news that impacts your small business and mine. My name is Gene Marks. Thanks so much for watching or listening. Take care.

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