WASHINGTON – “Small businesses are Rhode Island’s job-creating dynamo,” Dr. Chad Moutray, chief economist at the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Business Advocacy, said in a report last night.
Last year, the state had an estimated 101,800 small businesses – those employing fewer than 500 workers – of which 32,700 were employer-owned, according to the OBA’s 2007 Small Business Profile: Rhode Island.
More than half the state’s non-farm private work force – 58.2 percent – was employed by small businesses in 2004, the latest year for which such data are available, the OBA found. Nationwide, small businesses employed 50.9 percent of the work force.
From 2003 to 2004, as businesses across Rhode Island added a net 7,300 non-farm jobs, most of those gains – 7,200 net jobs – came at firms with 19 or fewer workers. Employment also grew at companies with 20 to 499 workers, which added 3,200 net jobs in 2004. But those gains were mostly offset by the 3,100-job decline at companies employing 500 or more.
In 2002, the latest year for which such data are available, the state had 23,200 women-owned firms, which generated $3.6 billion in revenue. Among minority groups in 2002, Rhode Island had 3,400 Hispanic-owned, 1,500 Asian-owned, 100 black-owned, 400 Native American-owned and 50 native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander-owned businesses.
Small businesses “are the key to the state’s ability to increase gross state product, personal income and total employment,” Moutray said. “Clearly, policymakers need to consider [the] impact on small business when they are making policy decisions.”
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Business Advocacy examines the role and status of small businesses in the economy, funds research into small-business issues and represents small businesses to Congress, the president and other federal agencies. Additional information, including the latest Small Business Profile for each state and territory, is available at www.sba.gov/advo.
