More Grist for the Jobs Debate

Just when we were wondering whether anyone had anything to add to the job-generation debate, along comes the most recent edition of the Small Business Administration's Small Business Advocate with some interesting (if not exactly groundbreaking) employment statistics:

· Start-ups create from two to three times the number of new jobs small-business expansions do.

· Small manufacturers accounted for 24% of all employment in that sector back in 1972 but by 1991 accounted for 38% of all U.S. manufacturing jobs.

· Given the rapid rate of contraction among businesses of all sizes, U.S. employers have to create 10 new jobs in order to produce one net new job.