Keeping Track: trends in hiring

Small companies no longer generate most new jobs

Small firms of 20 employees or less posted the most "help wanted" signs during the start-up frenzy of the mid-1990s. But hiring slowed as the decade went on, and midsize and large companies generated bigger shares of new positions, according to data from the Small Business Administration and the US Census Bureau.

In addition, "a lot of the smallish-to-medium companies had grown into big companies by the end of the '90s," says Brian Headd, an economist with SBA. "The ones that are cutting have been around for a long time. It's not an issue of small versus large, it's an issue of entrance versus incumbency and the evolution of industries."