With the Washington shutdown, there are no BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) jobs numbers today as planned. Furthermore, all eyes are fixated on BIG government. However, history demonstrates that neither federal, nor state, nor local governments are efficient jobs creators. Furthermore, big companies have been net losers of jobs over the past 20 years. For example, Merck, a leader in one of the few growing industries, recently announced plans to slash another 8500 jobs by years end! Instead, the focus needs to be on SMALL as in small businesses, which, prior to the recent recession, generated almost 80% of the net new jobs annually over the last 2 decades and have produced 13 times more patents per employee than large firms according to the most recent statistics by the Small Business Administration.
Today and to that end, the City of Chicago is sponsoring a major, small business conference at the University of Illinois, Chicago to promote these phenomenal engines of jobs growth. Please go to http://www.chicagosmallbusinessexpo.com for more details.
“A lot more needs to be done to assist small businesses. One answer may be substantially expanding successful programs like SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives, a counseling arm of the Small Business Administration). They have a proven track record in helping small business owners to succeed and in turn creating more jobs, which will more quickly drive our economy out of its malaise than anything the government can do personally. That is why my staff and I will be assisting with today’s small business conference”, said Scott Sargis, president of Strategic Search Corporation in a morning meeting with analysts. Eshwar Noojibail, Senior Counselor at SCORE agreed, “We at SCORE try to educate new entrepreneurs on how to start and operate a successful business that not only may improve their own financial situations but also, may help improve our national economy.” Mr. Sargis added, “I would advise all government agencies to refocus efforts and follow the lead of SCORE in providing general assistance for small business owners and not trying to target winners such as Solindra and Fisker. Then let the marketplace decide which are the most prosperous and best engines for jobs growth for this economy to pull out of its malaise.”
