With the last few months seeing an upsurge in the unemployment rate, it may be a good time to think about the vast number of employable people out there who could very well fill in what you need, given the right training.
The Chicago Tribune reports that a local company, Extended Care Clinical, is tapping the growing unemployed to fill in their much-needed nursing vacancies for interested folks who can still be trained to become company nurses.
This development had me thinking that this could very well be followed in other industries. I am sure there are many who will welcome this opportunity to be re-trained even at a lower salary base. That’s a lot better than remaining among the ranks of the unemployed.
And it works both ways, as companies can consider them as fresh hires getting paid entry-level or on-the-job training salaries while learning to get the right skills for their new careers. Like starting fresh. I hope companies take advantage of this golden opportunity.
Written and edited by sms lån topplista se from Sweden, read more about finding a job in Swedish here (blog)
If you do, you can no longer avail of some incentives like availing loans from the Small Business Administration. Well, cheer up, SBA is proposing to increase the size limits it had earlier defined for small businesses since 1984. That means small companies that have grown bigger can remain qualified for low interest SBA loans and other federal aids for small enterprises.
This can be good for the growing business but it can limit the availability of funds to start-ups and the small merchants who are the most in need for hard-to-get capital these days.
“Personally, I tend to be skeptical about it and prefer to remain with a one standard size for what it means to be small across all industries and not tinker with it from time to time. ” says Låna Pengar Guiden
If you have an opinion on this, visit www.regulations.gov, or email sizestandards@sba.gov to vent your voice but only until Dec 21st.
The current recession can be considered a good learning experience not only to seasoned entrepreneurs but also to the younger Gen Y crowd starting out in the business world.
Donna Fenn, in her book Upstarts: How Gen Y Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success, leverages 20 years of writing about Corporate America to present an encouraging view of what lies ahead with an increasingly more astute Gen Y entrepreneurs.
Harnessing the power of new technologies, partnering right from the start even with competitors and building a more socially and morally conscious company culture where a work-life balance is better achieved characterize the new breed, according to Donna.
In addition, performance-based meritocracy gets higher priority over employment years. The new entrepreneurs have grown up with the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson as their roles models. It’s interesting to note that out of the many companies that Donna interviewed in her book in 2008 when the economy was much healthier, only one went out of business and two sold the business when the book finally came out in the middle of the economic meltdown.
The last few months have seen a spate of small business getting gobbled up by larger companies at bargain basement prices. Just last month, BusinessWeek got sold to Bloomingdale for a mere $5 million. California’s oldest bookstore, Vroman’s both an independent local bookstore bought Book Soup.
In both instances, getting sold can spell the difference between death and survival for the acquired in today’s economic recession.
Market analysts are divided with some rejoicing that this is the best time for various small players in many industries to consolidate. But there are many who decry the bargain values of businesses that have thrived successfully for years and after all the investments their owners have put into the business only to get so little in the end.
Is this a sad trend or something fortuitous that herald better times ahead with fewer competing companies?
Anything that can help businesses to flourish in the current economic downturn is welcome. Small businesses need all the government encouragement and the Small Business Administration is accepting nominees for the national Small Business Week Awards that is held annually.
There’s a Small Business Person of the Year to be awarded in each state and one national winner. There’s a Young Entrepreneur of the Year as well as a Small Business Exporter of the Year award.
You can’t nominate yourself, of course. You’ll need a local organization to do that. Nomination application forms can be downloaded from this site:
http://www.nationalsmallbusinessweek.com/_files/live/2010AwardNomForm.pdf. Just make sure it gets to your local SBA office this Friday, Nov. 13, 2009.
Almost two years of recession have left small business closing shop. The ADP estimates that as many as 2.6 millions jobs have disappeared from small scale enterprises reeling form the economic meltdown. And those that are lucky to remain in business are stripped to the bone, as it were. They are getting by with the just slightly better than a skeleton workforce while some have reduced payslips.
Cost cutting measures have never been more severe. Branch offices are shut down or floor spaces reduced to save on rentals and electricity where workers can just do their job from their homes at reduced salaries. Full time employees become part-timers and many job functions are outsourced overseas with cheaper labor cost.
Corporate America will never be the same again. With skeleton workforces often taxed to their productivity limits right in their homes that are wired to the internet. With this, a lot of savings had been realized that just might be extended even after the recession.
The big honchos got their billions in bail out loan money from President Obama’s Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP over the last 12 months. It looks like the President is now setting his sights to doing the same for small businesses in trouble. Hopefully, his proposal gets congressional nod soon enough.
The initiative would grant small community banks with assets below $1 billion to get loans with lower 3% interest rates than the prevailing 5%. It will also increase the SBA lending limit from $35,000 to $50,000.
The National SBA has been in batting for this government support on small scale enterprises and it’s good to hear that the bill gets re-introduced by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship chaired by Mary Landrieu (D-LA). The only question is, will it still help or it’s too late?
Murphy’s law just can’t be beat. But if you are prepared, you can always mitigate its impact on your business. Get yourself a copy of The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide, a survival reference guide everyone and every business should have.
It’s not another heavy-handed economic or business management book that you need to digest from cover to cover. Authors Mark Joyner and David Borgenicht co-wrote the book to cover how to deal with worst-case scenarios in HR, sales and marketing and productivity areas, among others.
As a quick reference guide, you only use it when confronted with business problems, emergencies and crisis situations like labor strikes, executive disputes, or meeting the payroll. Even if your business is doing fine, it’s comforting to know you’re armed to deal with any of Murphy’s Law’s unpredictables.
