A great deal of tension seemed to surround today’s jobs numbers and for some reason it feels like people are holding their breath wondering when the lost jobs are coming back. The fact is, they aren’t and we need to stop running the economy like we can produce the magic solution. (Title of this post is nod to Springsteen lyrics from My Hometown)

Many of 8 million jobs lost during the recession were falsely created by subprime lending and total lack of regard for reality. Many of the programs currently proposed mirror the policies of the past in attempts to spend our way to creating thousands of jobs in sectors that probably can’t sustain long term job creation.

The answer is so simple that it’s hard to understand why it eludes.

Instead of creating thousands of jobs one time create one job thousands of times.

In other words, invest in small business. The way out is to take the money being spent on job creation and unemployment benefits and put it into small businesses or organizations empowering small businesses and let them hire one or two more people each in real and permanent jobs. Small businesses are fueling the entire recovery and most of the job creation currently going on this country as it is.

Instead of elephant hunting, let’s do a little economic gardening! (Nod for that term goes to Chris Gibbons Director, Business/Industry Affairs City of Littleton, Colorado)

Economic Gardening is the simple concept that small, local companies are the source of jobs and wealth and that the job of economic developers should be to create nurturing environments for these companies. (More on Economic Gardening from The Kauffman Foundation)

According the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses:

• Employ about half of all private sector employees.
• Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).

Doesn’t it make sense to fuel job creation by fueling small business startup and growth?

Image credit: this lyre lark