Small Businesses Important Players in the Economic Future
Posted by: Mark Marich
on
October 30, 2009
Source: Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship
The SBA Office of Advocacy’s new
Small Business Profile for the United States highlights that small businesses are important players in U.S. business and job growth.
The profile includes details about small business employment, business starts and closings, bank lending in 2008, the demographics of business ownership, and firm and employment change by major industry and firm size. For example, the profile also shows that:
- In 2008, the U.S. saw an increase of 0.7 percent in GDP and a private sector employment decline of 0.7 percent.
- Small employers numbered 6.0 million in 2006, representing 99.7% of the nation's employers.
- Small businesses added 2.5 million net new jobs in 2005-2006. Overall, they employed 50.2 percent of the nation’s nonfarm private workforce in 2006.
- The health care and social assistance industry was the nation’s largest small business and overall employer in 2006.
“In today’s economic climate, it is especially important for policymakers to keep small business concerns in mind as they formulate policy,” said Susan Walthall, Acting Chief Counsel for Advocacy.
Category:
General
