Small Businesses ROCK!

Oooo… if you don’t yet know the following about me, you’ll soon witness it.  I am a super nerdy numbers and data chick.  And, I love all sorts of cool little statistics and factoids.  I couldn’t resist sharing these tidbits with you about Small Business in the United States.  Basically… we, small business owners, rock!

Small Non-employer firms… (taken straight from the US Census Bureau)

• About three quarters of all U.S. business firms have no payroll.
• Most are self-employed persons operating unincorporated businesses, and may or may not be the owner’s principal source of income.
• Since 1997, nonemployers have grown faster than employer firms.
• In 2004, non-employer companies made up 19.5 million firms in this country.  Employer companies made up 5.8 million firms.

Small Employer firms… (taken straight from the Small Business Administration)

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer fi rms.
• Employ about half of all private sector employees.
• Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
• Create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting fi rms; these patents are twice as likely as large fi rm patents to be among the one percent most cited.

So go on!  Keep doing what you’re doing!