Many economists (and the President) believe that small businesses will be what reignite job growth in the U.S. Today, Intuit is out with a new way to track that theory — a monthly small business employment index that leverages payroll data from tens of thousands of customers to track hiring trends.

Specifically, the index measures hiring at roughly 50,000 companies with less than 20 employees that use Intuit Online Payroll. Much like Mint (which is now owned by Intuit) can shed insight into personal finance habits by analyzing customer data, the idea here is that in aggregate, Intuit’s small business customers can tell us which way small business is trending each month.

The company’s first report shows that there were 40,000 new small business jobs created in February, representing a 0.2% increase in its index. Moreover, its report shows that small business employment bottomed out in the middle of last year, with 150,000 jobs created in total since June, 2009:







How does Intuit’s data compare to that released monthly by the U.S. Department of Labor? In its most recent report — for January — the unemployment rate dropped from 10% to 9.7%, breaking an uptrend we’ve seen since 2007.

It;s number looks at overall employment, though — not just small businesses — so if the thesis that a recovery starts with small business is to be believed, perhaps Intuit’s data is telling us something, especially if January doesn’t prove to be an anomaly when the Department of Labor issues its next report.

In any event, we like that Intuit is leveraging its data to provide insight into broader trends. We’ve seen companies like AdMob, Flurry, and JiWire (and even Facebook and LinkedIn) do similar recently within their respective fields, and see it as an effective way for brands to build further awareness for their products.