Many of the nation wide new jobs are created by small businesses. They almost provide employment for about half of the nation’s private sector work force. They also provide half of the nations private real gross domestic product (GDP), nonfarm and also a significant share in innovations.
There was 1.1 percent increase in Real Gross Domestic Product this year. But during the fourth quarter, GDP was down 6.3 percent on annualized basis. There was modest growth in the first half of the year and there after, it saw sharp declines during the second half.
There was no hope in investment due to the significant declines in all the quarters except the third quarter. Small amount of decline was because of the real government consumption and gross investment. Real exports were down by 23.6 percent during the fourth quarter. There was instability in the financial markets.
There was a lot of struggle in small businesses because of downturn. There was a drop from 10.4 million in 2007 to 10.1 million in 2008 in average unincorporated self-employment. It was steady at 5.8 million on average during 2007 to 2008. The construction small firm industries lost 682,000 jobs in 2008.