Yellen: Small Businesses are Driving Job Growth

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is spotlighting the fact that U.S. small businesses have accounted for more than half the job gains during the nearly 5-year-old economic recovery.

The economy has regained 8.6 million jobs since early 2010, leaving it about 100,000 jobs short of the 138.4 million that existed in January 2008 near the start of the recession. More than half those jobs came from companies with fewer than 250 employees, Yellen tells small business owners in a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Yellen says the Fed has tried to foster the conditions for job creation by keeping interest rates near historic lows, but that "overwhelmingly, it is businesses that create jobs."

By contrast, governments have shed 2.6 percent of their workers since early 2010.