confidence among owners of small businesses in the us deteriorated in december to a sixmonth low as shortterm expectations over sales and business conditions worsened at yearend the national federation of independent business said tuesday that its smallbusiness optimism index fell to 898 in december from 919 in november below the indexs historical average of 98 and the lowest level since june economists polled by the wall street journal expected the index to increase marginally to 920 small business owners are not optimistic about 2023 as sales and business conditions are expected to deteriorate nfib chief economist bill dunkelberg said owners will  do their best to deal with the fallout from all of the uncertainties in a year of slow growth and stillpersistent inflation he said the surveya monthly snapshot of small businesses in the us which account for nearly half of private sector jobsshowed that the deterioration in confidence was driven by declining earning trends and more pessimistic views about the economy more businesses in december reported lower profits mainly due to the rise in the cost of materials and weaker sales meanwhile less owners expected business conditions to improve in the next six months according to the survey expectations for future sales also deteriorated while plans to increase employment capital outlays and inventories were broadly unchanged the data showed smallbusiness owners reported a still tight job market albeit there were some signs of cooling around 41 of owners reported job openings that were hard to fill down three percentage points from november and the lowest reading since february 2021 still the difficulty in filling open positions was particularly acute in the construction manufacturing and transportation sectors and the majority of those surveyed reported they were hiring or trying to hire at yearend the nfib said inflation remained as the most important problem for small businesses in december but the survey also showed signs of abating price pressures the percentage of owners raising average selling prices fell to 43 in december from 51 a month earlier its lowest level since may 2021 price increases were most frequent in wholesale manufacturing and construction