Smaller organisations are more relaxed about recruitment difficulties than their larger counterparts but still face real difficulties persuading talented managers and professionals to join them.
Young people are being deterred from starting up their own businesses because of a fear of failure, lack of role models and a rules-based 'conveyor-belt' educational system that crushes the enterprise spirit.
The first employees recruited by small firms tend to climb the corporate ladder faster than those who join later. But favouring the 'first born' is fraught with peril, according to those who have seen the results.
With almost half of smaller employers in Britain unable to find the skilled staff they need locally, could flexible working prove to be the inducement they need to persuade people away from larger employers?
Entrepreneurs are shunning family members when setting up a business and increasingly setting up new ventures with friends rather than relatives.
Britain is producing a generation of 'unemployable' school leavers who are not qualified for anything except getting drunk and not turning up for work in the mornings, employers have complained.
Despite all the rhetoric talking up Britain's enterprise culture, the government is failing to stimulate the development of small businesses, according to a report from the country's largest employers group.
A quarter of Britain's small business owners intend to recruit additional staff and invest more during the next 12 months, underlining continuing optimism amongst the country's entrepreneurs in their own businesses.
The CBI/Real Business Growing Business Awards 2005 have been launched to find the UK's most successful entrepreneurs.
More evidence has emerged of the effect of red tape and taxation on small business as a new survey find that more than third of small firms in the UK want to stay small and not recruit any more employees.
The boardroom glass ceiling may finally be starting to crack, but for women who want to get on in business it is becoming increasingly clear there is another significant gender imbalance to be tackled – finance.
A new £30 million investment fund has been launched to bridge the funding gap for female entrepreneurs in Britain who often face obstacles raising money through traditional channels.
Four out of 10 of Britain's company bosses say they would be unlikely to set up in business if the opportunity arose again, with red tape and tax their two biggest problems.
The European Commission has admitted that Europe is missing out on the creation of 1.5 million new jobs because micro-businesses are being held back by excessive employment regulation and red tape.
More evidence has emerged of the damaging cost of excessive regulation with half of Britain's small businesses saying that employment legislation is their biggest administrative headache and is hitting their bottom line.
The number of minority-owned business start-ups has reached record levels in Britain, accounting for 11 per cent of all new business start-ups and often outperforming their white-owned counterparts.
Britain's high street banks have an institutionalised bias against female-owned businesses, typically charging them one percentage point more in interest on business loans.
The UK government's latest piece of regulation on business is causing a bit of a stink among owners of equine businesses.
In an antidote to endless research about work-life balance, flexible working and the like, a survey by Bank of Scotland has revealed the deeply unfashionable fact that the more hours an entrepreneur invests in their business, the greater chance they have of achieving growth.
When a business gears up for growth and the inevitable changes this brings, everyone looks to the top for direction. This is especially true – and difficult - for SMEs.
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