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Having been in business for 30 years and survived many consumer spending slowdowns, Lloyd Lippman isn't cutting staff at his retail executive search firm. He's been adding account executives and plans to hire two or three more by the end of the year.

''Our competition will probably be looking to contract. By us expanding, we think we'll be in a great position,'' Lippman said.

Cliff Robertson is also hiring for his Dallas-based real estate investment firm, seeing plenty of opportunity in a wounded industry: ''The fact the real estate market is down is good for us. It allows us to buy better deals.''

While the government has reported job losses in the hundreds of thousands since the start of the year, many small businesses are looking to build their staffs, not cut them. They can benefit when other companies are struggling, or they're preparing for better times ahead.

Overall, surveys and statistics show that small business owners are cautious. The National Federation of Independent Business, which tracks small business sentiment through monthly surveys of its members, said optimism fell in March to its lowest level since 1980. One of the components of the NFIB's optimism index, companies' plans to create new jobs, dropped to its lowest level in five years.

The good news is that small business owners in general don't seem to be looking to eliminate jobs. William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB, said the expected relative mildness of this economic downturn may be a factor in their holding the line on hiring rather than cutting back. The big companies in cyclical industries are the ones under the most pressure and being forced to cut positions, but, Dunkelberg said, ''Barbershops? Probably not. Hardware stores? Probably not.''

Rob Wilson, president of Employco, a human resources outsourcing company, found a similar trend among his clients. ''We haven't seen layoffs like you saw in the last recession,'' he said, although he's seen an overall downturn in new hires.

But Employco also finds that many clients are indeed taking on new staffers. ''The hires we're seeing tend to be more strategic hires, a senior person or adding to your sales staff,'' Wilson said, explaining that some companies are focused on the growth areas of their business.

Lippman, CEO of East Brunswick, N.J.-based Career Management, sees plenty of growth opportunities for his company, with retailers looking for executives to help them out of a slump that began late last year.

''My thought process in the past has been to contract, but since we've been a pretty healthy business, we are going to take the opposite approach and really look for market share,'' said Lippman, whose company also has an office in New York.

He said Career Management has had some painful times of its own, with business off in December and January. But, he said, ''you grow or you die - that's been my philosophy.''

Robertson also finds opportunity, even in the troubled real estate industry. His company, The Champions Group, is involved in projects ranging from single-family homes to commercial developments, lining up investors for each. He says business is harder - he used to be able to get 100 percent investor financing on deals and now 80 percent or 90 percent is more the norm - but he's been running a company long enough to be philosophical about a downturn.

''There are always going to be problems,'' he said.

Robertson said his firm has hired two people so far in 2008, and plans to add three or four new positions by the end of the year.

Having a service or product that's in demand, particularly in a downturn, is helping many small businesses flourish.

Buzzback Market Research, a New York-based company that does online consumer surveys, is adding staff because of the growing call for its services from other businesses, including big corporations that need market research data on their products. Owner Carol Fitzgerald said her company is providing a service that some of her larger clients used to do in-house - before they were forced to lay off staff and had to outsource some of their operations.

''We've become part of the research team, part of the marketing team,'' said Fitzgerald. She's about to add four workers to the current staff of 39, and ''I'll probably add a few more by the end of the year.''

Outsourcing providers of all kinds - whether they supply accounting or human resources services or high-tech help - can find themselves in a position to hire, simply because their business customers need help, sometimes urgently.

Dave Winslow, president of Epik One, a Burlington, Vt.-based firm that helps companies improve their online marketing operations, began 2008 with 12 employees, now has 20 and is looking to have about 40 by year's end.

''After the holiday season we saw a lot more inquiries,'' Winslow said. This past holiday season was a huge disappointment for many retailers, offline and online, and prompted many to seek help from small businesses like Epik One.

And other small businesses just find themselves able to hire because they're in relatively new and growing industries.

LoanWell Financial, a reverse mortgage company based in Clearwater, Fla., has hired eight loan officers in the past three months and expects to take on at least four more before the end of the month. Owner Michael Banner said the company is expanding to New Jersey because of the number of senior citizens wanting to take money out of their home equity to supplement their income.

''Our part of the mortgage industry is exploding,'' he said.

Banner said he migrated into the reverse mortgage business from traditional mortgages 18 months ago, and recognizes that his timing was fortuitous. Instead of hiring, ''I might be saying, 'Would you like fries with that?' " he said.

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* JOYCE ROSENBERG writes about small business for The Associated Press.