News and Announcements

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has joined with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to launch a training program for transitioning service members and veterans to help them become entrepreneurs and create jobs.  Operation Boots to Business: From Service to Startup is a national initiative that will be piloted with the U.S. Marine Corps. The announcement was made today by U.S. Small Business Administrator Karen Mills and U.S. Marine Corps representatives at Quantico, VA. 

The Obama Administration today announced a $26 million multi-agency Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge to foster innovation-fueled job creation through public-private partnerships. These coordinated investments will help catalyze and leverage private capital, build an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and promote cluster-based development in regions across the United States. This is the third round of the Jobs Accelerator competition, which is being funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); the U.S. Department of Energy; the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration; the Small Business Administration; and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“This $26 million Accelerator Challenge is yet another example of the Obama Administration’s commitment to supporting American manufacturers in building things here and selling them everywhere,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson. “We are so pleased to join with our federal agency partners to further strengthen the American manufacturing sector, which creates high quality, good paying jobs. Commerce’s Economic Development Administration has a strong record of investing in regional innovation clusters that foster the job creation and business development crucial to an economy that is built to last. This Challenge further bolsters our efforts and builds on the momentum we have seen in the manufacturing sector in recent months, including the 489,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs that have been added since January 2010.”

Advanced manufacturing is critical to the health of the national economy and provides essential goods and equipment directly to consumers as well as to a wide range of industries, including the energy production, agriculture, medical and computing industries, and the security and intelligence sectors.

The federal government issued on May 9 a solicitation for proposals from teams led by non-profit organizations or universities to establish an Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which would serve as a pilot—or proof-of-concept prototype—for President Obama's proposed National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI).

Quarter by quarter, small businesses with fewer than 500 workers continued to outperform large firms in net job creation three out of four times from 1992 through 2010, when private-sector employment rose, according to data in the latest edition of The Small Business Economy.

The newest edition is formatted to improve the accessibility of the data in an online series of tables on small business in the economy and small business financing. This rich collection of information about small business contributions to the economy and trends over time is offered this year, for the first time, in tabular form online in place of the paperback report.