After Layoffs, Starting a Business from Scratch
Plenty of employees have visions of launching their own ventures. Layoffs are spurring some of them to make the plunge
They’re casualties of the recession: the millions of workers laid off as employers slash payrolls. With few companies hiring, a number—no data exists on what percentage—of the newly downsized have decided to start their own ventures instead of looking for work in an economy shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. We reached out to dozens of “rebounders” across America, in industries from manufacturing to media, finance to health care, to see how they’re turning their business ideas into reality. You can check them out in this slide show.
The unemployment rate, at 8.1%, is higher than at any point in the last 25 years. Nonfarm employers cut 651,000 jobs in February alone, and 2.6 million vanished in the last four months. Many are disappearing from companies that were titans in their industries, such as GM (GM), Yahoo! (YHOO), or the now-defunct Washington Mutual bank, absorbed by JPMorgan (JPM) in the financial collapse. Some workers cast off by these companies say even the risky venture of starting their own companies offers more stability than going back to work for someone else.
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