Small Business Struggles Revealed In Firm Size Numbers
Jun 28th, 2010 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: ResearchLast week, the U.S. Census Bureau and the SBA Office of Advocacy finally released the 2007 firm size class numbers that we normally see in March. In 2007, there were 27.8 million U.S. businesses, up from 26.8 million in 2006. That represents a 3.6% increase in the U.S. business population and that’s a pretty healthy jump. However, that healthy jump consists almost entirely of nonemployer businesses, which increased their numbers by almost one million firms, from 20.8 million to 21.7 million in 2007, up 4.5% from 2006 levels. Employer firms, on the other hand, increased in number by a relatively minuscule 0.5%, from 6,022,127 firms to 6,049,655 of them.
Microbusiness employers with fewer than five workers grew slightly in number, firms with between 5 and 9 workers fell by too small a number for the calculator. Non-micro small businesses with between 5 and 499 employees fell by 0.3%, and most of that decline appears to have consisted of those small firms shrinking to micro size. When the dust settled, the trends in the numbers continued to creep in the direction in which they’ve been creeping for years. Nonemployer firms have increased from 77.5% to 78.2% of all U.S. firms. Firms with fewer than five employees now comprise 91.6% (up from 91.2%) of U.S. firms, while non-micro small businesses with between 5 and 499 employees dropped from 8.7% of the business population to 8.4% of same. The large firm proportion remained consistent; they are still less than one percent (0.7%) of U.S. firms.
