NFIB

Why We Need Small Businesses
05/ 29/ 2003

by Vicki Gerson

If it seems like you know more small business owners these days than you used to, you're probably not imagining things. Small enterprises with less than 20 employees comprise one of the fastest growing market segments in the country. Whether it's a one-person shop or a an office with a few employees, the number of U.S. small businesses is expected to grow in the next few years.

As people retire from the corporate world or are forced into early retirement, many of them are becoming new entrepreneurs. Few can afford to retire or are too young to retire. So some of them turn their hobbies into a business, while others use their knowledge from the corporate world to create a business that provides what the corporate giants don't.

There is another important reason so many small businesses are emerging. Large manufacturers are closing their factories and moving offshore, causing a loss of jobs. The lack of jobs with major manufacturers is encouraging unique businesses to form.

Big business's losses are the rest of the country's gains. Statistics indicate that between 1992 and 1998, small firms created almost all of the 12 million new jobs that came into existence in the United States. In addition, smaller firms tend to hire across the workforce spectrum, giving high school students their first job as well as employing part-time retirees, fostering diversity in the workplace.

Smaller businesses that offer a variety of products or services are more resistant to downturns in the economy than a larger company that offers only one product or service. Small businesses also make towns and communities less dependent upon one company for jobs. When a large corporation suddenly closes its doors, a whole community can take a serious economic downturn.

Large corporations are not creating the jobs to keep America's economic engine working at full speed. What is keeping the American economy running today are the small businesses plugging along in good times and bad, filling the needs of their communities.

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