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A story that ran on Glenn Beck’s new site asks a question that many Americans may be wanting to know. Mike Opelka titled his article, “So Where Are All The Green Jobs From That $500 Million Investment?” In that article, Opelka shares that the White House is now dealing with yet another report of layoffs, this time in the green energy business. This round of layoffs will come to thousands of employees who were trained during a “green jobs program” at the cost of five million dollars. This comes as a company that President Obama had nothing but praise for back in 2010, Amonix Inc, announces that it will be laying off hundreds of thousands of workers. Much like Solyndra and others, this Washington-supported company has failed to create and sustain the jobs that it promised.
A report in USA Today by Gregory Korte states, “The program’s goal was to train 124,893 people and put 79,854 in jobs. But 17 months later, 52,762 were trained and 8,035, or roughly 1 in 10, had jobs. Those numbers come from an audit by the Department of Labor’s inspector general, which recommended that the administration end the program and return unspent money.” Now the House Oversight Committee Chairman, Darrell Issa (R-Ca) wants answers. He is demanding to know how these grants were awarded by the Department of Labor during the infamous and controversial stimulus bill of 2009.
But despite the political rhetoric and public confusion in America over just where the five million dollars for “job creation” has gone, there is good news in worldwide numbers today. This report is that those numbers are not only getting better in the United States, but these totals are improving all over the world! Like the number 400 million….and no it is not the amount of money lost or people losing their jobs. There are now 400 million entrepreneurs in the world according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. So how does this affect the job market? Out of those 400 million entrepreneurs, 140,000 of them will create as many as five new jobs within the next five years. This means that within that time, entrepreneurship will have added 700,000 new jobs. According to www.bosinno.com, entrepreneurship could be single handedly saving the world economy. It is a theory that has been reported by Entrepreneurweek in several previous articles, such as “Entrepreneurs Focus on Solving National Issues as Politicians Debate,” and “Job Creation: Why Entrepreneurship Benefits the Economy.”
The report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) cited 54 countries and was written by professors who were from JJ Strossmayer University, located in Croatia, as well as the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship-part of the University of Cape Town in South Africa and Babson College. According to GEM’s estimates, 163 million new entrepreneurs are women and 165 million are between the ages of 18 and 35. Those who are interested in seeing previous years’ reports from GEM can do so at their site.
Angela Kaye Mason is an online researcher, writer, and contributor at entrepreneurweek.com blog network. She may be reached at eweekcomauthor@gmail.com. Follow Angela on Twitter. Find her on Facebook .
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