Small Business Numbers Reach New High

The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy has issued its report on The Small Business Economy for Data Year 2005 (PDF).  The report was just issued in December 2006, but in typical government fashion the data analysis lags considerably.

According to the report, the number of self-employed and small businesses reached a new high at the end of 2005, with over 29 million small businesses, of which 19.8 million were small businesses with no employees. 

For those of you who need to do demographic and other statistical market research on the small business market, the report points out the maze of Federal statistics: 

“Finding the right sources is often the challenge, with data dissemination scattered among the various federal agencies.  The tried and true method of starting with the Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States, which contains basic information from many federal and nonfederal sources, still works today.  Researchers who need more detail can conduct follow-up work on the sources listed in tables with similar data.  Umbrella government websites, in addition to general Internet searches, are other good methods to find data.”

The report goes on to describe some of the challenges in finding data on the small business market, starting on page 12.  The Appendix has a number of helpful tables with small business data.