Why Jim Cramer Thinks Small Business Owners Can Do More Hiring Than Firing In 2022 The CNBC host says he's bullish on entrepreneurs because he believes in their creative ability to innovate.

When I look at small, private businesses," says Jim Cramer, "I love to hear expansion plans. It is so exciting to me to hear expansion plans." He believes the future will be full of expansion.

Cramer sees business from all sides — as the host of CNBC's Mad Money, where he covers the public market, as well as a cofounder of TheStreet.com (and onetime co-owner of a restaurant in Brooklyn, which he sold his stake in this year). When he looks at the current environment for entrepreneurs, he sees many hurdles — but also many opportunities to get creative and utilize a raft of new services from big companies that see the benefit of helping small businesses grow. Here, he explains why entrepreneurs have reason to be so optimistic.

You mostly cover public companies, but you say that the real engine of economic growth is small business. Why is that?

When I see a large company trying to get their gross margins up, it tends to not be about expanding their sales. It tends to be about doing more with less. They don't need as many people as they may have had. But that's not growth — that's creating money. With small businesses, the goal is to hire people! If I've got one restaurant and it's doing well, I'm going to put up another restaurant, hire another 20 people — and if I can make more money with 25 people, I'll hire 25 people.

Related: 6 Steps for Hiring the Right People to Build Effective Teams

Many big businesses are now supporting small ones. What's going on there?

What they're saying is, "OK, we see work ethic. We see companies that want to add people. Also, we see companies that are run by women, that are in inner-city neighborhoods, and we want to support them." They understand that if they take a longer-term view and help the small-­business person, that person's not going to stay small.

Shopify is the best example. A lot of the companies on Shopify don't know anything other than their product. But Shopify knows everything about how to get that product, and they know cash flow. They see who's doing well. And when they see someone do well, they want to put more money into that person [through its small-business-loans program].

Now, look at what Facebook just launched. Facebook is basically saying that if you can't pay your bills, they'll pay them. Then when you get your money in, you pay it back to Facebook. [Facebook started this program for women- and minority-­owned small businesses in October, backed by $100 million.] It fixes the mismatch that you often have as a small-­business person, of money coming in and money coming out.

And this isn't charity, right? Companies see great returns by helping entrepreneurs.

Totally. Let's take the example of Constellation Brands. They have a fund for original, minority-owned ideas about beverages. So an African American gentleman comes to them and says, "There's this craze for rosé wines, but they are for women. And yet the taste is not necessarily for women. How about if I come up with a men's rosé?" They gave him some money, and [the brand La Fête du Rosé] is a total home run.

To me, that is a sign that people are starting to think outside of what they thought they would do — and making more money than they ever thought. This is exciting to me. It is so obviously additive. Entrepreneurs are thinking at all times about how to have more, more, more. More people hired, more business being done, more stores being opened. That's the joy of business.

Related: How to Expand Hiring in a New Business

What challenges are ahead for small businesses in this economy?

Costs have gotten prohibitive — ­labor, real estate, insurance, food. So instead of wanting to be in total growth mode when I was a restaurant owner, I wanted to pull my horns. I felt that if I missed a couple of weeks, or if I had an outbreak of COVID, or if costs went up, I didn't have the cushion I'd like. Then I had to figure out, OK, do I cut back on point of sale? Can I really afford DoorDash? But if I don't afford DoorDash, will I piss people off? There are a lot of decisions I had to make that are like what big businesses have to make, and that's not fun.

How does that play out?

If we could get more women back into the workforce, there would be a greater pool of labor. That'd be terrific. But if we don't get some price breaks somewhere, small businesses are going to be smaller for a while. So I'm a little down about raw costs. If I were to start a business I really wanted to grow, I would have to figure out how not to hire people. And that's not the joy. The joy is to put people to work.

Any entrepreneur can relate to that — and it's hard to imagine costs going down. Now what?

Well, as an entrepreneur facing these problems, I should think, I'm not being creative enough. I'm not thinking the way I have to, which is to say, OK, let me see if I can't push specials to people. Why aren't I being more creative with some of my distributors and saying, "Guys, give me some juice and I promise you will be surprised how much business I can do"? Why am I not thinking about better branding? A happy hour? Targeted ads on Twitter? I am sticking by the same plan that got me where I was, rather than me thinking about what's next.

You have to challenge yourself to figure out why you're not bringing in more people. I think a lot of times it's because, Well, it always worked before. Uh-uh. Come up with new reasons. No more low-hanging fruit. Maybe get a ladder, find the higher fruit.

Related: What to Consider When Hiring Employees

In other words, the future of small business is being even more creative?

Absolutely. And relying on people. Ask people! I mean, at the restaurant, I asked my distributors, "What's everybody else doing that's interesting?" I asked American Express the same thing. What you need to do is try to figure out how to bring more people in. That's a much more satisfying way to approach business than trying to figure out how to fire people.