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Parish to create business development office
With the new year will come a new economic development office for the parish.
"I want to go after small business. I want us to do what we can to keep the businesses we have and to attract more," said Parish President Don Menard, who said the new development office will be created using members of his existing staff.
Menard, who owns Don's Country Market in Carencro, is a small businessman. He called small business the engine that drives the local economy.The U.S. Small Business Administration agrees. According to SBA records, small businesses - those with 500 or fewer employees - create 60 to 80 percent of the nation's net new jobs each year. In 2004, the most recent year for which data is available, small firms accounted for 100 percent of the net new jobs created in the entire nation.
In its state-by-state comparison, the SBA called small business the "heart of the Louisiana economy," pointing out such businesses account for 55.2 percent of all the state's non-farm jobs. This compares to the national average of 50.9 percent.
In 2004, while large business employment in the state actually dropped by 2.6 percent, the SBA said small business generated employment grew by 18.9 percent overall and by an impressive 26.1 percent in the smallest of the small business categories - those employing fewer than 20 employees.
While attracting new business to the parish is important, Menard said the new office also will focus on helping the businesses that already exist prosper.
"We need to do everything in our power to retain our small businesses," Menard said. "Business and government need to be connected."
He said the new office is designed to compliment, not compete with the St. Landry Economic and Industrial Development District, which tends to focus on attracting larger industries, such as the Wal-Mart Distribution Center, to the parish.
"We don't want to compete with SLEIDD," Menard said, "but we don't have anyone looking specifically at the needs of small business. We need that."