At approximately the same time that the Census Bureau was releasing the 2007 nonemployer data, another important bit of research into nonemployer businesses was also released — this time, by The Enterprise Center at Salem State College. The study, entitled “Proprietor Employment Trends in Massachusetts and Essex County: 2001- 2006,” was commissioned by The Enterprise Center and conducted by Dr. Lawrence E. Goss, professor in the Salem State Department of Geography and affiliated with the college’s Center for Economic Development and Sustainability. This paper refers to its subject as ‘proprietors,’ which is defined as a business that is not legally separated from the individual, without corporate legal protections, in which all profits and losses are accrued to the individual. Most proprietors are nonemployers, of course, but this definition also includes microbusiness employers, and even non-micro small businesses that are sole proprietorships.

The study found that, between 2001 and 2006, while wage and salary employment was declining in Massachusetts, so many new ventures in self-employment were started during the period that the state actually experienced a net job gain. The research also found that nonemployers and microbusiness owners constitute a “hidden workforce” that accounted for 20% of our economy’s “jobs” in 2006 and concludes that self-employment is neither a fluke nor a labor market failure. It is, instead, a trend that has been gathering momentum for at least the last five years and shows no signs of going away. Policy makers are unaware of all this because new jobs created through self-employment are not included in federal or state jobs numbers, according to Christine Sullivan, executive director of The Enterprise Center. “How can we ignore that many people?” she asks. “How can we ignore their economic potential?” How, indeed.