Business Opportunities
Nonemployer Businesses
The U.S. Census Bureau, in Nonemployer Statistics: 2003 (September 26, 2005), reported that more than 18.6 million business in the United States were operated that year by the owners alone with no other workers. (Sole proprietorships, discussed above, are businesses with a single owner that can have few or many employees.) As defined by the Census Bureau, nonemployer businesses have no paid employees, have annual receipts of at least $1,000, and are subject to federal income taxes. The 2003 national total represented growth of 5.7% over the number of nonemployer businesses counted during the previous year. Nonemployer businesses accounted for nearly $830 million in receipts during 2003 and comprised seven out of ten businesses in the United States.
Sectors that included the largest number of nonemployer businesses in 2003 were other services (which includes personal care establishments such as beauty and nail salons, as well as pet care, auto repair, and drycleaning services, among others; 2.7 million), professional, technical, and scientific services (2.6 million), construction (2.2 million), and real estate and rental and leasing (two million). Sectors that provided the largest shares of receipts among nonemployer businesses in 2003 included real estate and rental and leasing ($176 billion, or 21.2%); construction ($126.4 billion, or 15.2%); professional, scientific and technical services ($102.9 billion, or 12.4%); and retail trade ($80.5 billion, or 9.7%). Sectors with the fewest nonemployer businesses were utilities (13,862) and mining (87,931). The lowest receipts for nonemployer businesses were in utilities, with $600.4 million.
Industries that saw the highest increases in the number of nonemployer businesses from 2002 to 2003, included real estate appraisers (an increase of 19.1%), nail salons, (15.9%), landscape architects (14.6%), software publishers (14.4%), clothing accessories stores (12.9%), bed and breakfast inns (8.5%), and carpet and upholstery cleaning services (7.5%).
TABLE 9.5 Employer firm terminations by state, selected year 1990–2003
| TABLE 9.5 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employer firm terminations by state, selected year 1990–2003 | ||||||||
| State | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | Annual percent change | Rank |
| *Estimate. | ||||||||
| Notes: Self-employment presented here represents individuals whose primary occupation is self-employment and they may or may not have employees. Note that some businesses file more than one tax return. Terminations for 2002 and 2003 are estimated from 2001 data from the Bureau of the Census, yearly percent changes in similar data provided by the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration and rounded. Terminations are from prior year's March through current year's March. Employer firm estimates are the previous year figure plus the difference between termination estimates. On occasion, some state terminations result in successor firms which are not listed as new firms. | ||||||||
| SOURCE: "Table 8. Employer Firm Terminations by State, 1990–2003 (Selected Years)." in Small Business Economic Indicators for 2003, U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, August 2004, http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbei03.pdf (accessed January 8, 2006) | ||||||||
| U.S. total | 531,400 | 497,246 | 542,831 | 553,291 | 569,000* | 554,800* | ||
| Yearly change (%) | — | — | (0.3) | 1.9 | 2.8 | (2.5) | ||
| Closing rate (%) | — | — | 9.7 | 9.8 | 10.1 | 9.8 | ||
| Alabama | 10,927 | 10,968 | 9,302 | 14,781 | 12,062 | 10,927 | (9.4) | 40 |
| Alaska | 3,382 | 2,530 | 2,671 | 2,575 | 2,541 | 2,507 | (1.3) | 20 |
| Arizona | 14,235 | 15,431 | 11,984 | 16,371 | 17,642 | 15,488 | (12.2) | 43 |
| Arkansas | 7,252 | 4,872 | 5,581 | 4,746 | 4,491 | 6,918 | 54.0 | 1 |
| California | 135,767 | 152,945 | 134,541 | 149,831 | 156,858 | 140,435 | (10.5) | 42 |
| Colorado | 12,864 | 17,933 | 7,561 | 6,954 | 10,332 | 13,243 | 28.2 | 3 |
| Connecticut | 11,994 | 11,619 | 11,528 | 11,348 | 11,383 | 11,044 | (3.0) | 23 |
| Delaware | 1,422 | 3,193 | 3,052 | 3,122 | 3,891 | 3,148 | (19.1) | 49 |
| District of Columbia | 3,715 | 3,302 | 4,996 | 4,013 | 3,973 | 3,874 | (2.5) | 22 |
| Florida | 54,009 | 52,467 | 55,186 | 54,573 | 52,241 | 56,665 | 8.5 | 7 |
| Georgia | 24,448 | 23,161 | 26,754 | 24,352 | 31,479 | 25,898 | (17.7) | 48 |
| Hawaii | 3,385 | 3,953 | 3,521 | 4,080 | 3,994 | 4,010 | 0.4 | 17 |
| Idaho | 3,337 | 4,861 | 6,249 | 5,851 | 7,040 | 6,742 | (4.2) | 28 |
| Illinois | 29,173 | 30,260 | 31,361 | 31,976 | 32,093 | 41,112 | 28.1 | 4 |
| Indiana | 10,632 | 14,129 | 15,738 | 15,839 | 16,156 | 15,137 | (6.3) | 31 |
| Iowa | 6,971 | 7,702 | 7,485 | 7,770 | 7,480 | 7,378 | (1.4) | 21 |
| Kansas | 8,788 | 8,387 | 6,981 | 8,055 | 6,876 | 8,392 | 22.0 | 5 |
| Kentucky | 11,276 | 9,307 | 7,508 | 9,883 | 11,614 | 10,801 | (7.0) | 35 |
| Louisiana | 10,883 | 11,347 | 13,708 | 13,319 | 14,416 | 12,171 | (15.6) | 46 |
| Maine | 4,737 | 4,676 | 4,906 | 5,401 | 5,042 | 4,715 | (6.5) | 32 |
| Maryland | 17,945 | 16,256 | 19,563 | 20,667 | 20,927 | 21,697 | 3.7 | 12 |
| Massachusetts | 17,539 | 15,417 | 18,164 | 18,268 | 20,532 | 21,870 | 6.5 | 9 |
| Michigan | 28,676 | 20,340 | 30,240 | 26,535 | 26,975 | 24,748 | (8.3) | 39 |
| Minnesota | 13,614 | 12,458 | 4,829 | 6,770 | 12,851 | 17,928 | 39.5 | 2 |
| Mississippi | 7,200 | 7,077 | 7,555 | 7,557 | 7,160 | 7,267 | 1.5 | 14 |
| Missouri | 16,674 | 17,588 | 17,580 | 18,188 | 21,653 | 20,190 | (6.8) | 33 |
| Montana | 3,453 | 4,066 | 2,435 | 3,881 | 4,445 | 4,679 | 5.3 | 10 |
| Nebraska | 6,144 | 4,645 | 5,234 | 5,394 | 5,234 | 5,050 | (3.5) | 25 |
| Nevada | 4,888 | 6,483 | 7,761 | 8,252 | 8,667 | 8,939 | 3.1 | 13 |
| New Hampshire | 6,018 | 5,044 | 7,341 | 5,264 | 5,418 | 4,598 | (15.1) | 45 |
| New Jersey | 25,538 | 25,667 | 23,950 | 27,890 | 31,571 | 36,827 | 16.6 | 6 |
| New Mexico | 4,943 | 5,240 | 6,451 | 5,495 | 7,949 | 5,770 | (27.4) | 51 |
| New York | 63,627 | 56,813 | 57,423 | 65,616 | 63,631 | 61,199 | (3.8) | 26 |
| North Carolina | 21,643 | 23,389 | 23,467 | 23,217 | 22,184 | 23,234 | 4.7 | 11 |
| North Dakota | 2,265 | 2,045 | 2,191 | 2,112 | 1,893 | 2,049 | 8.2 | 8 |
| Ohio | 23,863 | 28,091 | 24,276 | 25,460 | 24,269 | 23,544 | (3.0) | 24 |
| Oklahoma | 9,397 | 8,623 | 8,848 | 9,498 | 8,923 | 8,434 | (5.5) | 30 |
| Oregon | 11,921 | 13,022 | 16,102 | 15,512 | 14,793 | 14,194 | (4.0) | 27 |
| Pennsylvania | 27,929 | 27,254 | 34,893 | 33,426 | 35,859 | 32,917 | (8.2) | 38 |
| Rhode Island | 3,863 | 5,985 | 4,170 | 4,152 | 4,981 | 4,103 | (17.6) | 47 |
| South Carolina | 10,736 | 10,391 | 11,721 | 12,893 | 11,491 | 10,711 | (6.8) | 34 |
| South Dakota | 2,370 | 2,360 | 1,809 | 2,156 | 2,098 | 1,899 | (9.5) | 41 |
| Tennessee | 18,902 | 15,896 | 17,563 | 17,637 | 16,514 | 16,315 | (1.2) | 19 |
| Texas | 53,831 | 56,027 | 57,300 | 59,342 | 58,114 | 55,461 | (4.6) | 29 |
| Utah | 5,774 | 7,654 | 10,135 | 13,565 | 11,272 | 10,368 | (8.0) | 37 |
| Vermont | 2,687 | 2,577 | 2,653 | 2,578 | 3,501 | 2,584 | (26.2) | 50 |
| Virginia | 21,438 | 18,493 | 20,569 | 21,449 | 20,305 | 20,539 | 1.2 | 15 |
| Washington | 23,087 | 30,847 | 41,793 | 41,122 | 40,782 | 35,345 | (13.3) | 44 |
| West Virginia | 4,408 | 5,119 | 5,542 | 5,741 | 5,595 | 5,550 | (0.8) | 18 |
| Wisconsin | 11,591 | 13,054 | 15,151 | 14,135 | 13,651 | 12,629 | (7.5) | 36 |
| Wyoming | 2,900 | 2,735 | 2,908 | 2,969 | 2,895 | 2,921 | 0.9 | 16 |
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Jobs and Career OpportunitiesCareers and Occupations: Looking to the FutureBusiness Opportunities - Business Starts, Business Size, Business Failures And Terminations, Safest And Riskiest Businesses, Number Of Businesses