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With the U.S. unemployment rate near a 26-year high, a record number of unemployed Americans are turning away from applying for jobs at large corporations and starting their own businesses instead. About 8.7 percent of Americans in the second quarter of 2009 gained employment by launching their own business, the highest level since 2007, according to a report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas released today. That’s double the startup rate during the same period a year ago.

This surge of entrepreneurialism could be a positive for the U.S. economy, as some of the country’s most successful tech companies have been born during tough economic periods, including IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard. Will this rise in upstarts lead to the next big idea in tech? Maybe not. The report warns that today’s rate of U.S. startup activity won’t reach the same heights that it did in the ’80s and ’90s, namely because many traditionally risk-averse people have been pushed to go the entrepreneurial route due to record unemployment levels. Between 1986 and 1992, the percentage of Americans starting their own business averaged 16 percent annually, according to the report. Still, any rise in people dedicating themselves to innovation isn’t a bad thing.

from Gigaom