The job market for employees has never been more challenging, all the more reason that entrepreneurship has become and is becoming more mainstream and a potentially positive sign for new employment creation.  

If you think back to the last Recession in the early to mid 90’s, one of the factors that helped pull us out was the huge knowledge and talent base that could not find jobs so they created their own. Engineers of all sorts, from electrical, mechanical and surely aerospace, found that defense cutbacks had major ripples within their industries and affected them personally. Major Banks and savings and loans and earlier versions of software and hardware development companies found the same thing and many of these brilliant employees now found themselves as (hopefully) brilliant business owners.  Sometimes starting alone or with just a partner or two, their companies grew; they hired, and eventfully became a significant part in getting the economy back on track. The same thing is due now and has never been more needed.

Those that are self-employed are a huge factor in Newport Beach and the city ranks fourth in the county with 9.3% working for themselves. Some of these figures are guesswork since it is sometimes difficult to track them all. The Number One city in Orange County for self-employment? Costa Mesa, our neighbor next door, with a wide margin of 14.2%, followed by 11% in Westminster and Yorba Linda at 10.3%. All these figures far surpass the national average of 6.3% nationwide and 8% in the entire county of Orange.

Nationwide there were 110,000 new jobs created by private employers in October, a large number, but not enough to be impactful according to ADP, the large payroll provider. Most of those jobs are in the service sector and on the negative side manufactures eliminated about 8,000 jobs. Ironically even though the economy is in a slump, there are many wonderful things you can do with numbers and the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) should show a 2-3% increase in Q4. Most predictions are that “full employment” will not be reached until 2015-2016.

All the more reason for small businesses or those that wish to be plan on attending the Newport Beach city sponsored community outreach program on January 21, 2012 at the Oasis Senior Center. The “helping 100 businesses for 100 days” workshop is coming back for the second year and last year generated great response and results. This 13-week class is free and will help you understand your business (or the business you want to start) better than ever before and will improve your bottom line. For information or to reserve your spot visit http://newport100days.eventbrite.com.