NEW YORK | 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.