Osborne said: "Last year's emergency budget was about paying for mistakes of the past. Now it is about ensuring jobs and growth in the future.
"This will be rescue to reform, then reform to recovery. Stability will bring new jobs and growth.
"This is not a tax-raising budget, but nor can we afford a giveaway - it will be fiscally neutral. We will encourage enterprise. It is a budget for making things, not for making things up. Britain has a plan and we are sticking to it.
"But stability is not enough. So we are publishing a plan for growth."
Raj Tulsiani, CEO of Green Park, which is 19th in the Sunday Times/Virgin Fast Track 100, the list of the UK's fastest growing private companies, said: "The Government needs to be both more strategic and tactical.
"SMEs need help. Employers need to be able to hire and fire easily with less legislation.
"I want to see this Government demonstrating a commitment to delivering economic growth through SMEs and encouraging innovation that gives us competitive advantage internationally. I feel they need to make it much easier for SMEs to do business and provide value.
"There are armies of procurement professionals who want to get the best value and services from the market, but across the public sector in particular they are restricted by frameworks. The majority of those pan-sector frameworks are outdated and provide less advantage than the free market forces - as well as significantly disadvantaging SMEs in favour of 'the usual suspects'.
According to Charles Logan, director at recruiter Hays, more needs to be done. He said: "The greatest problem is existing employment legislation and the abundance of red tape that is really preventing growth. We need the Government to act quickly with regards to its plans to scrap £350 million of business regulation and work with employers to ensure any new and existing regulation is easy to implement and supports both employers and employees.
"Growth also depends on addressing the skills shortages that we now face in the UK. It is positive to see that the Government plans to fund 24 university technical colleges, create 40,000 new apprenticeships for young people and funding for 100,000 work experience placements. But these strategies will only be successful in closing the skills gap and reducing high levels of unemployment if we continue to engage with young people and the jobless to encourage them to train and develop skills in the more 'in demand' areas."
Summing up the 'Budget for growth', Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, is more optimistic. He said: "We are delighted that the chancellor has listened to recruiters and the wider business community. It is also promising to see that the Government has prioritised youth employment with a £300 million package to help young people into work. Our Youth Employment Taskforce has urged the Government to take decisive action on the rising number of young people outside of education or employment and it is good news that 40,000 apprenticeships and 100,000 work experience opportunities are coming onboard. "However, we urge the chancellor to consider further fiscal incentives to help employers take on young people, such as a National Insurance holiday of at least one year for SMEs who take on additional young people."
He added: "Despite the positive direction of travel in this budget, there are areas where more must be done. We were disappointed to see the chancellor has maintained the planned increase on National Insurance contributions, which drive up the cost of taking on new staff, and has failed to look at barriers in the benefits system that prevent unemployed people from taking on short-term job opportunities."
Brian Wilkinson, UK head of Randstad, said: "Randstad welcomes the chancellor's plans to reduce youth unemployment by creating 130,000 work experience and apprenticeship positions over the next few years. But, given there are over three quarters of a million unemployed young people, it is vital that confidence is built and maintained in the private sector so that it can generate the jobs required.
"Temporary work will be of critical importance. Such assignments have always been a vital route to work - for unemployed youth as well as for the long-term unemployed - and about a third of temps have been able to use their experiences to find permanent work."
Summing up his own thoughts on the Budget, Roger Philby, Founder and CEO of talent management company, The Chemistry Group, said: "An irrelevant budget but honestly they all are… As a business owner who started with a couple of credit cards and a re-mortgage seven years ago I have seen seven budgets come and go and I can honestly say none of them have done me any good and possibly any harm.
"I only worry about things that are in my control, 1% reduction in corporation tax…well anyone running an SME worth their salt will have an accountant and/or tax consultant already reducing this; I am already controlling this exposure. 1% up or down matters not. NI rises, look I can't do anything about it, so we will roll with it, are my best people worth me coping with a 1% rise in NI contributions? Of course.
"I am currently hiring seven additional staff, does the NI rise mean I do something different, hell no.
"The media and commentators place far more importance on the budget than any business owner will, most people who start their own companies believe that they control their destiny totally, we deal with external factors daily, the budget is just another external factor and compared to the possible negative economic impact of the upcoming series of bank holidays it's a breeze."
