Small business development helps retain business establishments, and allows existing businesses to thrive and create regional job growth.  Small business support strategies are part of any vision that entails supporting regional economic prosperity.

While economic development efforts are centered around recruiting new businesses and helping existing ones expand in a region, workforce development partners assist with the expansion and retention activities of existing businesses. 

This entails sector strategies for entrepreneurship training, skill upgrading, and other start-up business support activities, as well as layoff aversion strategies.

Self-Employment Assistance for Entrepreneurs Toolkit

States can effectively administer their Self-Employment Assistance (SEA) program by utilizing the Small Business Administration's (SBA’s) deep expertise in small business mentoring and training, and by collaborating with SBA’s nationwide network to provide SEA program participants with easy access to essential knowledge to start their own businesses and to grow and create jobs.

The SBA's collaboration with the Department of Labor helps ensure that states have the tools and resources, such as this SBA Business Smart Toolkit, to begin and sustain successful entrepreneurship training programs.

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Small Business Partnership Toolkit

This toolkit is designed to assist you in building strong partnerships between the workforce development system and small business-serving organizations to strengthen entrepreneurship and self-employment in your community.

Please click here to view the toolkit that brings industry professionals together to discuss building these relationships.

Layoff Aversion Guides

This Texas guide provides information on key strategies, policies and procedures to assist Local Workforce Development Boards with layoff aversion tactics and activities. 
 
The Virginia Steel Valley Authority also issued a Layoff Aversion Guidebook and a Rapid Response Layoff Aversion Guide.

The Employment and Training Administration also presented Layoff Aversion: Preventing and Minimizing Unemployment. 

National Business Learning Partnership (NBLP) Gulf Coast Case Study
 
This NBLP study on Doing Business in the Gulf Coast highlights numerous local achievements in implementing a demand-driven system, including the implementation of a business service model with diverse solutions, and its very successful health care initiative. 
 
The NBLP matched mentor sites with workforce intermediaries that wished to improve the customization of their business support strategies to serve small and medium-sized business' needs.