SBA notices signs of small business recovery

3/9/2011

At the end of 2010, a number of surveys indicated that small business owners were growing increasingly optimistic about their prospects in 2011. It looks like that optimism is slowly paying off, with the U.S. Small Business Administration noticing signs of recovery in companies across the country.

Small businesses account for two out of every three jobs created in the U.S., and more than half of Americans work for a small company. This led President Barack Obama to make startups and small companies the cornerstone of his new economic recovery plan, which he outlined last month during his State of the Union address.

"We're seeing some indication that small business job numbers are starting to come back," Karen Mills, administrator of the SBA, told the Dallas Morning News. "As I've visited different places, I've noticed that small businesses really are starting to come back - they're starting to grow, to invest and to hire."

The biggest challenge for small business owners in 2011, according to a recent survey conducted by Hatsize, is boosting sales. Fortunately, they can use resources obtained from small business lending to improve their marketing and sales activities.