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."
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