Posted on 11/29/2012 1:11:18 PM PST by crosshairs
In a sign that more Americans are feeling upbeat about their economic prospects, more people were running or starting new businesses in 2011 - the highest level since 2005, according to a study released Thursday.
More than 29 million Americans were engaged in entrepreneurship last year - a 60 percent gain from 2010, according to a report issued by Babson College and Baruch College. And nearly 40 percent of these entrepreneurs are expected to create more than five new jobs during the next five years. "There is renewed interest in entrepreneurship," said Donna J. Kelley, associate professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College.
(Read more: A Pitch Fest for Entrepreneurs) Additionally, more Americans took the leap into entrepreneurship based on their perception of promising opportunities ahead, a group sometimes called opportunity entrepreneurs. In contrast during the depths of the recession, more people had started businesses because they couldn't find jobs and had no other option. This trend is referred to as necessity entrepreneurship. The rate of necessity entrepreneurship dropped to 21 percent of all entrepreneurs in 2011 from 28 percent in 2010. In 2011, "not only did we see more entrepreneurship, it was being pulled up more by opportunity entrepreneurs," said Kelley, the lead author of the 2011 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) U.S. Report. (More From CNBC: Two Tickets Share Record $588 Million US Powerball Win) The rise in overall entrepreneurship matched the gain recorded in 2005, when the economy and businesses were booming, according to the report. Many of the new businesses in 2011 were direct-to-consumer ventures including small business such as retail shops, restaurants, hair stylists and tax preparation.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
why is this surprising?
No one but Yahoo!
Which tells you all you need to know about that company.
Comments below the article are entertaining.
Unable to get a job, more Americans are selling their labor or their wares any way they can.
Total BS. If more businesses have been started it is largely because there are no jobs to be had and people are desperately trying to scratch out a living any way possible. Not because anyone is feeling "upbeat".
Propagandists have done a stellar job of convincing people everything is just peachy. I have to say, I’m impressed, not with the underlying intent, but certainly the ability to pull off one of the most truly amazing feats of deception in history.
Goebbels would be SOOOOO proud!
Does this include stealing and the manufacture and sale of illegal substances???
..or the massive expansion of "The World's Oldest Profession?"
“Unable to get a job, more Americans are selling their labor or their wares any way they can.”
Precisely. The black market economy was the only one that flourished (relatively speaking) in the USSR.
As Titanic sinks, many hope to upgrade their cabins to first class.........
Actually, the main determinant of people starting business is loss of a job and the inability to get a comparable status job. What this says is that a lot of people have been out of work for a long time.
A bunch of Julias getting their startup capital for gay wedding consulting businesses from Baracka Claus?
Some amazing business opportunities exist: Standing in the median with a crude cardboard sign; Raiding the recycle toters on garbage day looking for cans and bottles; Washing car windows in busy intersections. I met a guy who cleans up dog poo at people’s houses for ten dollars a week.
Welfare scammer = new entrepreneur.
That's specifically addressed in the report and no, that's not the kind of entrepreneurship that is happening right now.
The home pharmaceutical manufacturing business is big, as is abatement of unwanted plumbing, electrical wiring, and guard rails etc. I see these “entrepreneurs” bi-monthly in the local rag mugshot page.
When you run out of 99 weeks of unemployment, entrepreneurship suddenly looks like a straw to grasp.
Not to mention the scammers who (at least here in SE VA) place crude signs every-friggin'-where that say, "We Buy Used Cars."
This development is going to piss Obama and the rest of the democrats off to no end. Independence of spirit and free enterprise aren’t what the dark side has in mind.
Well if there was any plausibility to it, you’d think eBay would show great interest too. (Maybe they do for all I know.) It’s an inevitable consequence of big businesses losing due to progressive policies that target them. The economy tries to come back through small businesses.
That’s per house on his poo rounds, of course. Get a neighborhood of that and you can make some pin money.
I know this to be a fact. Lost my job, then started my own business.
Meanwhile, on the sidewalk in front of my business, lie two Occupy dorks who are left out in the streets after being kicked out of the local parks with their tents confiscated. College educated and too proud to get a menial job, yet not so proud as to beg on the sidewalk.
New interest?
Uh...no they are trying some are trying to survive and some have indeed learned to depend on themselves...
I started my business fifteen years ago, for precisely that reason. After surviving the first horrifying twelve months, we were off to the races and never looked back.
Since the Dims took control of Congress in 2006, it's been tough as hell to make a living, but I wouldn't go back to being someone's employee for love or money if I could (which I can't).
Yep - 16 years ago for me. “What do you call a guy that’s just been laid off? A consultant!” (Funny - the day they let me go I knew it was the best thing for me.)
I think you hit it right on the head!
I wish I'd been so confident on the day I made that decision. My wife and I had just paid the first payment on our first house, and had a baby due in two months. And we already had a toddler who hadn't had his first birthday yet.
Talk about scared.
The only thing that took the edge off for me, was the fact that I'd temporarily gone to work for a buddy who was up to his eyeballs in work. He'd asked my wife and I to run his one man shop for a few weeks while he was out of town. He didn't get back for six weeks. By that time, we'd learned the ropes of his business well enough to strike out on our own.
Just barely, though. We really only knew enough to be dangerous, but we persevered, and made it anyway.
With no help from Big Brother, I might add. That first year we went to the SBA to get a 'micro loan' and they turned us down cold. Don't tell me I "didn't build that". I most certainly did.
The Seasonal Job, driving the Mentally Ill to the Polls for the Democrat Party ended on November 7th.
Translation: After endless months spent searching for jobs, some people create their own.
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