Surge in US small businesses started as side hustles

foxbusiness.com:

Employbridge’s Joanie Bily explains what the March jobs report says about the state of the U.S. economy on Making Money.

The percentage of small businesses that were launched last year by owners who were working for someone else soared nearly two-fold from 2022, according to new data.

A recent survey of 1,300 new business owners conducted by payroll firm Gusto found the share of new business owners working full-time or part-time for another employer while starting their business surged from 27% in 2022 to 44% in 2023. 

A networking event for small business owners. (iStock / iStock)

Gusto principal economist Liz Wilke told FOX Business in an interview that when she saw the numbers, she thought, «Wow, that is a really big jump…and when you have a big jump like that, it's usually not just one thing.»

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Wilke believes there are multiple factors that contributed to the surge. One, which is not specific to 2023, is that the rise in remote and hybrid work has created a lot of flexibility for time and space for people to work at their regular jobs and side jobs alike.

However, she said there were also a few things at play last year that led to the jump from 2022.

«One is 2023 sort of saw the crest of inflation after a full year-and-a-half to two years of really hard inflation – things are still quite expensive,» Wilke said. «That, coupled with the fact that the economic outlook really feels a little wobbly to some people right now.»

Police say the woman took the money out of the cash register after pretending to be an employee of the restaurant.  (Mills Hayes/Fox News / Fox News)

That combination along with the fact that people no longer have to quit