Incubadoras de empresas

Business incubators provide more jobs dollar for dollar
Incubators generate up to 20 times more positions than community infrastructure projects By Clay Hickson and Ellen Hemmerly

As PresidentObama and Congress debate the best way to turn around the struggling U.S. economy, they should pay closer attention to business incubators, the foremost creator of jobs in our nation. For 50 years,incubators such as Towson University’s TowsonGlobal and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s bwtech@UMBC, have helped entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable businesses. At a cost far less thanthat of infrastructure projects, incubators promote innovation and create a greater number of jobs by providing emerging companies with business support services and resources to increase their chancesof success. Recently, the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration commissioned Grant Thornton to study the economic impacts and federal costs of EDA construction programinvestments. Researchers found business incubators are the most effective means of creating jobs. Incubators provide up to 20 times more jobs than water and sewer projects – at a cost of $144 to $216 per jobfor the former, compared with $2,920 to $6,872 for the latter. Yet, the report notes, by dollar invested and by number of projects funded, business incubation programs have been the least well-fundedof EDA’s public infrastructure projects. Another EDA-funded study in the mid-1990s found 87 percent of all firms graduating from NBIA member incubation programs were still in business – and about 84percent of those graduates remained in the incubator’s community. According to Dinah Adkins, president & CEO of the National Business Incubation Association, a 1,900-member organization representingincubation programs in 59 countries, jobs created by incubators aren’t one-time construction jobs but enduring, high-paying positions that contribute to community and U.S. global competitiveness....