It’s no secret that private sector job growth has been anything but lackluster. Sure the unemployment rate has declined significantly since the height of the crisis but we are still almost double the long term average and the preferred level of Bernanke and the FOMC under their dual mandate. Because of the continued economic stagnation, the average private sector growth is roughly 2 percent. We’ll get another reading of the labor market in America tomorrow after the BLS employment situation is released but don’t expect much deviation from the norm. However, one group of small businesses is bucking the national trend and produced above average job growth of 14 percent, created more than 1,000 new jobs, and preserved 73 percent of the current jobs on their payrolls. Indeed, this group of small business is the Boston based Interise who, according to their website, is an organization for established small businesses interested in growth, seeking to fill a gap in small business economic development by using practice and applied research to promote job creation, wealth generation, and community building.

The group of small businesses that Interise is composed of reported a three-year total of more than 1,600 jobs created and more than 14,000 jobs retained, thanks in part to their efforts to boost education and training. It is therefore no surprise that they were again selected by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to head its successful Emerging Leaders (e200) and deliver a management curriculum and recruit instructors. The Sacramento Bee continues, “This initiative is the only federal training initiative that specifically focuses on executives of established businesses poised for growth. The SBA issued the award after an extensive public procurement process, awarding a 4-year commitment with Interise, which has been the national instructional provider for e200 since its inception. The Initiative is currently operating in 27 cities across the nation, many of them economically challenged. "We are pleased and humbled by the SBA's affirmation of our efforts as their partner and its commitment to this vitally important program," said Jean Horstman, CEO of Interise. "Given the success our efforts have had in some of the most diverse and economically battered cities, we are pleased to report that help for small businesses will continue to come in the form of this unique effort…”"