Buying Safety

I saw a LinkedIn post not too long ago, about a guy who offered a referral bonus to help his wife land a job. It's not a new idea, I've tried it a couple of times, but it seems to be making some waves these days; Business Insider had an article recently on two engineers who were each offering a cool $10K for referrals to land them their next job. It turns out that one was contacted by a hiring manager, and the other didn't land a full-time role, but that's beside the point for this post.

It occurred to me that if you could get a dozen or so people together, one might have the funds to start something. I wonder if the current economic situation is pushing people more towards job hunting than entrepreneurship. When people have low confidence in the economy as whole, the added risk that being in business for oneself involves becomes unpalatable. I know that there are other measures of employment risk taking that are taken into account (like the quits rate), but I wonder if there's an eye on the rate of business formation; or where the capital that could start businesses is being funneled, instead.