As our country slowly picks itself up from the enormous blows we took to our job market and economy, there is a heightened interest in what jobs are available and what industries are creating the most jobs for us. The BLS jobs report has become a largely anticipated part of the beginning of the month and we want to see the hardcore numbers hopefully showing us increased growth and production. The most recent report that has peaked much interest is one that was released by the Technology CEO Council. According to their report, small businesses that heavily use technology are very successful job creators.
“There is a certain type of company that is creating an enormous number of jobs,” said Michael Dell , founder of Dell Inc. and chairman of the Technology CEO Council (TCC). The report findings seem to suggest that those kinds of companies are tech-savvy, small businesses. Specifically, “web-knowledgeable small and midsize firms in industries ranging from retail to manufacturing,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Companies that have limited internet-use and aren’t quite as tech-savvy create half as much as the companies that are.
Why is this? According to TCC, technology makes companies more competitive and allows for them to do more with less. Through technology, companies can reach more customers and connect with them much more easily than if they weren’t using technology. Furthermore, advanced technology allows for companies to do more with less man power. According to the WSJ, recently-launched start-ups have an average of 4.9 employees. That is a large drop from the 7.5 employees that start-ups averaged back in 1990. This data seems to contradict the report’s statement that small businesses are successful job creators. That may seem so with the decrease in employee numbers, but today small businesses have more of a chance of starting up and succeeding than they did 10 or 20 years ago.
Catherine L. Mann, a professor of global finance at Brandeis, says that the report focuses more on net job creation rather than the individual growth of these companies. According to her, the barriers to enter into the workforce with these kinds of businesses have lowered over time and they can now operate on very small budgets because of technology. That allows for more businesses to start up and the their net jobs creation to increase. “Each one may not employ many people, but they have a lot of job activity,” said Mann. In the Brandeis report, statistics show that small businesses from 2001 to 2009 added jobs at a rate of 5.1 percent, while overall jobs creation in the country decreased by .5 percent.
The data is clear that small companies that heavily use technology are some of the best jobs creators for our country. It seems that legislatures and the members of Congress both know this as they work hard and fast to come up with a jobs bill that would enable small businesses to prosper even more. Hopefully, as Congress passes the necessary bills, more and more small businesses can get off the ground and add more jobs to our market.
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal
IMAGE: Courtesy of Acuity
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