I believe not-for-profits, NGOs, local, state, and federal governments along with the rest of the private sector and entrepreneurs are who create jobs.
As for what creates jobs. Thats simple. Fulfilling a demand for some product or service is what creates jobs.
That's one way. The better way is creating the demand for a product that you are making. Like a flat screen TV or a computer or a great movie.
The boom of the 90's was created by the demand for a product that nobody wanted in the 80's. If you were trying to fill the demand of the 80's in order to build your fortune in the 90's, you'd have cornered the market on disco music recorded on cassette tapes.
One might ask; "By what manner are jobs created?" "What are the factors that effect the creation of jobs?" "Under what economic conditions are jobs created?"
There are every manner of elements that are coincidental and required as part of the process by which jobs are created. And without them, jobs will not be created. But, we are not so interested, at least on the outset, as to what secondary conditions are necessary in order for jobs to be created. We are most interested in the primary factor necessary to create jobs.
We certainly cannot expect to answer the question of how jobs are created in a singular statement. But we may, at least, be able to define the primary element. And if we are to make a singular statement, we must address the primary element.
More pointedly, the question is "what is the essential element that is necessary for jobs to be created?" In fact, there is a singular statement that defines the primary element of job creation.
An increase in money creates jobs.
The necessary observation was made by Hume.
"Accordingly we find, that, in every kingdom, into which money begins to flow in greater abundance than formerly, every thing takes a new face: labour and industry gain life; the merchant becomes more enterprising, the manufacturer more diligent and skilful, and even the farmer follows his plough with greater alacrity and attention."[1]
Hume also observed that a decrease in money eliminates jobs. In fact, when the supply of money is decreasing, output is lesser for the same amount of money then it is when money is increasing.
At the elemental level,
an increase in money creates jobs. It is the marginal increase in money, however that should come about, that is the essential element of job creation.
There is, along with this fundamental requirement, a host of supporting details and additional factors that both accompany the process and are required for it. It should be noted that the process is an incremental one where the overall process creeps upwards in an imperceptible manner. A single job, created in an economy of 140,684,000 current jobs, is an increase of 0.00000071%. Jobs are created, one at a time, and unless the process is examined at that level, no manner of words will describe it. To create that job, sufficient excess demand must exist to account for that job.
While demand is certainly part of the process, To say, "Thats simple. Fulfilling a demand for some product or service is what creates jobs." is, unfortunately, over simplified. How is it that there is demand? Demand exists because there is motive and means.[2] For demand to exist, there must be the means by which the demand can exercised. That means is money.
The "desire" to own a good is considered necessary, but it is not directly observable or measurable. For all practical purposes, it does not exist except as a personal subjective sense of motive. We can only assume that, by abduction, others posses this same subjective feeling.
As far as an objective explanation goes, it is the observable and measurable factors that are the primary concern. The observable and measurable factor is the increase in money.
A second, observable and measurable factor is the product to purchase. The good is not part of the definition of demand yet it goes without argument that demand with no good will not make for a purchase. We are far better to include it in our considerations, only to modify it later, then to not include it and neglect it later.
It is the increase in demand that comes first, before there is an increase in production.
In job creation, it is the excess demand that is the necessary requirement. And excess demand is dependent upon the existence of the means to purchase, the money. There is no such thing as demand without money.
In order to get to the macro economic measure of job creation, we must burrow down, through the micro economics of the market, through the business economics of a company, until we reach the level of incremental production.
All of economics is dependent upon understanding what is going on at the margin. All of economics is dependent upon understanding what is going on in terms of the marginal change over time.
One additional unit of production is accomplished without an increase in jobs. An incremental increase in demand is satisfied with existing labor.
The questions are, how is it that the extra demand should come about, how does that an increase in demand cause an increase in production, how does that increase in production result in a new job, and how much excess demand is necessary for how long in order to cause a new job?
More pointedly, we ask "what can be done to cause jobs to be created?" It is, after all, this question that is important. If not for this question, we would have no more then an academic curiosity in job creation.
Creating the desire to purchase is of lesser concern. While advertising does give the appearance of creating demand, it is secondary to the primary factor of money. There is little doubt that advertising will stimulate demand. Yet the desire exists without advertising. All the advertising will do nothing, without some latent desire in place. I may advertise the sale of left over orange rinds and it will have little effect. Clearly, creating desire is limited and secondary.
The primary factor that causes jobs to be created in an increase in money.
And yet, without jobs, how is it that this increase in money comes about? It's the chicken and the egg argument. How is it that the economy grows, incrementally, if both must come into existence simultaneously?
Answer that question, and we are well on our way to understanding the nature of job creation. To understand it requires thinking at the margin.
[1] "Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary" by David Hume
David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary | Library of Economics and Liberty, Part II, Essay III
OF MONEY, Paragraph II.III.6
[2] "In economics, demand is the desire to own anything, the ability to pay for it, and the willingness to pay",
Demand (economics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia