Headlines aside I find the economic panic and ensuing bailout talk to be a tad dramatic. I’ve got no particular political ax to grind with that statement, I just think people get so caught up in the hype that they chuck reason.
Small business is the economic backbone of America and certainly the path to any economic bailout, yet nobody seems to acknowledge that fact.
While large businesses have lost more than 170,000 jobs over the last six months, small businesses are seeing their employment sector grow. Over 200,000 small business jobs have been created in that time. New data shows a continuation of this trend. Today, ADP released the September ADP National Employment Report® and ADP Small Business Report® which showed small business employment – defined as businesses with fewer than 50 workers – added 28,000 jobs during September.
The world is a far different place from the one that made up the backdrop of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. How small business makes money, who they serve, when and where they work has little to do with the Dow Jones Index – a fatally flawed gauge of just 30 companies.
Forget the Dow and focus on these numbers instead – lead generated, leads converted, average $ per transaction, average number of transactions per customer – and the turnaround will get underway.
