JANUARY JOBS: Entrepreneurship Under Threat

(ATLANTA, GA) – Entrepreneurship is threatened in America, say the chief executives of Job Creators Network in response to today’s release of the January jobs report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CEOs note the number of jobs created by business start-ups has slowed dramatically, and say trimming government overreach is key to bringing small business back.

Today’s jobs report for January revealed 151,000 jobs created, an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent, and 7.8 million unemployed.

“Entrepreneurship is the engine of the American economy, but the share of new jobs from new businesses has declined by almost ten percent since the last recession,” said Carlos Gazitua, CEO of Sergio’s Family Restaurants and a member of the Job Creators Network.

The share of new jobs attributable to start-ups is now hovering around 11 percent – a “troubling sign” for the economy, according to a Wall Street Journal report last week. Prior to the last recession, start-up activity contributed nearly 12.5 percent of new jobs.

“Our labor force is disappearing, and the decline of new jobs from start-ups is a piece of the puzzle,” continued Gazitua. “If the percentage of adults trying to participate in the job market today were at the same level as before the recession, we’d be counting 7.5 million more jobless in a much higher monthly unemployment rate. We don’t count them because they’ve disappeared.”

The labor force participation rate, the percentage of work-ready adults holding or seeking a job, averaged 66 percent or above for almost two decades before the recession, but has fallen sharply to less than 63 percent for all of the last year, and stands at 62.7 percent for January.

“Today’s entrepreneur faces a federal corporate tax rate that’s higher than every other developed nation, and a federal regulatory state that costs as much as the entire economy of Canada,” said Gazitua. “We need to break down these barriers if we want more new companies to hire more workers.”

Over-taxation, overregulation and lack of access to capital were major concerns reported by small businesses in a January poll conducted by JCN in conjunction with JCN’s “Bring Small Business Back” public information campaign. The BSBB poll also revealed fewer than 1 in 5 small business owners planned to hire this year.

Educating policymakers and the media about the need to reform the federal tax code, trim the cost of federal regulations and ease the regulations blocking access to capital are the objectives of the Bring Small Business Back campaign. For more information, please visit www.DefendMainStreet.com.

Job Creators Network is a nonpartisan organization founded by entrepreneurs who believe the best defense against bad government policy is a well-informed public. JCN advances this mission through the Employer to Employee education program (E2E). Learn more at www.JobCreatorsNetwork.com.