The hard work of putting America back to work will be done by entrepreneurs, not the leaders of the biggest companies in the nation and the heads of big unions.
According to the Census Bureau, nearly all net job creation in the U.S. since 1980 has been generated by firms operating less than five years.
Commerce Department data show that small companies represent 99.1 percent of all employer firms (a firm is an aggregation of all establishments owned by a parent company, even in multiple locations.). They pay nearly 45 percent of U.S. private payroll and have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the past decade.
A few start-ups from the last century may be familiar: Disney, Burger King, Fed-Ex, CNN and Microsoft all started during a period of economic downturn. Today, each of these companies employs thousands of people in the U.S. and abroad.
Recent research shows that more than half of the 2009 Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or bear market. In 2002, when the tech bubble burst Google was a mysterious start-up, algorithm-based business - little known and lesser understood. Today, Google employs 20,000 people worldwide.
So the question is how can we foster the next Google? Policy-makers can't predict breakthrough technologies, but they can create an environment that will encourage innovation. How to start?
First, provide further access to capital. Access to capital is the lifeblood of small businesses. Helping fledgling companies grow fuels the economy from the bottom up.
Second, welcome immigrants who are job generators. Increasingly venture capitalists, angel investors and innovators are advocating a "start-up visa" offered to immigrant entrepreneurs who want to start a company in the United States. In 2008, nearly 40 percent of technology company founders were foreign-born; 52 percent of Silicon Valley company founders were foreign-born, including the founders of Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel, to name a few.
Third, match funds for early investors. We have channeled billions of dollars to preserve "too big to fail" institutions. Why not make federal matching dollars available to catalyze smart investment in next generation businesses?
Read the entire article, "Job creation? Look to entrepreneurs" by Amy Wilkinson at CNN online
http://bit.ly/hMvEVJ
This entry is based on an article that echoes the familiar refrain that small businesses account for an extremely large portion of jobs and entrepreneurship is at the root of most of these small businesses. It also points out that an economic recession can stimulate small business development if the conditions are appropriate. Based on this, and many other articles, it seems obvious that the recommendations arising from the JCCI study need to include some focusing on creating conditions, and stimulants for, small business development. Though some will argue that such conditions and stimulants already exist, these elements currently seem disjointed and lacking a common focus. While it will be difficult to develop common goals that will guide small business development throughout the region, there is a definite need for more unity and collaboration between current and future small business development facilitators.
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