Small businesses on front line in Obama's jobs fight

With unemployment fast becoming one of US President Barack Obama's biggest domestic challenges, focus is shifting from "too-big-to- fail" manufacturing and financial giants to struggling small businesses. After months of high-level intervention to save mega-firms like General Motors and Goldman Sachs, Obama's economic team is now looking at small firms amid discouraging indicators about their health. This week the White House received word that the official US unemployment rate passed the symbolic 10 percent mark to 10.2 percent in October, the highest level in 26 years. Obama called the figure "sobering" and quickly said his administration was considering steps to spark job growth and to "increase the flow of credit to small businesses." ADP, a data monitoring firm, this week reported more bad news: that three quarters of jobs lost between September and October in the private sector were in firms with fewer than 500 employees.