According to a Wall Street Journal story last week, “Smaller Firms Lead the Way in Hiring”, the small businesses of this nation “are hiring at a faster rate than their larger brethren after lagging behind much of the economic recover.”
No one should be surprised by the first part of this statement. Exact statistics on hiring are not consistent. However what is consistent is that small businesses in general, and microbusinesses under five years old specifically, create the vast majority of net new jobs in this country.
But don’t be fooled by the second part of the Wall Street Journal statement that implies that only now are small businesses holding their own or out performing big business in new job creation.
The Wall Street Journal analysis only refers to the years 2010-2012 at the very beginning of the post-Great Recession (when we all still felt like the recession was still with us). But starting in January of 2012 small businesses with fewer than 50 employees were more than pulling their weight in creating new jobs.
I blogged about this that whole year touting statistics showing that from January through September 2012 these small businesses were creating on average 50% of the new jobs.
Apparently now we’re doing even better.