SBA study: R.I. economy improving slowly, self employed grew in ’13

THE OCEAN State is home to 96,166 small businesses, and 221,636 workers are employed by small businesses, according to a recently released  small business profile from the Office of Advocacy within the U.S. Small Business Administration.
THE OCEAN State is home to 96,166 small businesses, and 221,636 workers are employed by small businesses, according to a recently released small business profile from the Office of Advocacy within the U.S. Small Business Administration.

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island’s economy grew at a slower rate than that of the United States in 2013, despite an improving employment picture, according to a small business profile that the Office of Advocacy within the U.S. Small Business Administration released recently for all 50 states.
The profile showed that Rhode Island’s real gross product increased by 1.4 percent in 2013, compared with 2.2 percent growth for U.S. gross domestic product during the same time period.
It also showed that the Ocean State is home to 96,166 small businesses, and that 221,636 workers are employed by small businesses, a number that represented more than half of the state’s private workforce in 2012.
Nationally, there were 28.4 million small businesses, according to the Office of Advocacy.
The number of people in Rhode Island who were primarily self-employed in 2013 increased 3.4 percent compared with the previous year. Private-sector employment grew 1.2 percent over the 12-month period ending in October 2014, a rate which was below the national average growth rate of 2.3 percent.
The median income for self-employed individuals at their own incorporated businesses for the past 12 months was $52,322 in 2013. For individuals self-employed at their own unincorporated firms the figure drops to $23,587.
The three Rhode Island industries with the most small business employment were: health care and social assistance (43,932 jobs out of 84,287 total employment, making up 52.1 percent of the industry); accommodation and food services (31,219 people working at small firms out of 43,296 in total, 71.1 percent of the industry); and manufacturing (26,462 workers at small firms out of a total of 38,328, 69 percent of the industry).
Nationally, the top three industries for small business employment were similar, with only retail trade overtaking manufacturing.
Other findings for Rhode Island:

  • Nearly 31 percent of female-owned businesses were in the professional, scientific and technical services industry, with female-owned firms making up 17 percent of this industry.
  • In 2013, 2,227 establishments opened in Rhode Island, with 76.1 percent surviving through 2014.

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