NIOSH Program Portfolio : Small Business Assistance and Outreach : Sector Description

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Small Business Assistance and Outreach

Input: Sector Description

The Small Business Assistance and Outreach Cross-sector includes programs that reach across all workplace sectors because small businesses occur in every sector. Small businesses are especially common in the Trade and Services sectors.

In 2005, there were approximately 25.8 million businesses in the United States, according to the Office of Advocacy, Small Business Administration. Of that, only 17,000 are classified as large businesses and the rest are medium to small. Small businesses are not a uniform classification—they include a wide variety of establishments such as mom and pop grocery stores, dog groomers, construction contractors, specialty boutiques, home health workers, investment and insurance firms, and high tech consulting companies.

The Department of Labor estimates that small businesses (defined for their surveys as those with fewer than 500 employees) represent more than 99.7% of all employers in the United States. They employ more than half of all private-sector employees, pay 44.5% of the total U.S. private payroll, employ 39% of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers), and make up 89% of all identified exporters.

Source: Small Business Facts and Stats
External link: http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/smallbusiness/sb_facts.html
NIOSH, for the purpose of targeting our efforts where they are most needed, considers a small business establishment to be one with fewer than 100 employees. However, NIOSH recognizes that even within that limited set of businesses, the resources available for health and safety and the informational needs of businesses vary widely. Currently, NIOSH proposes segmenting small businesses for research and outreach efforts as follows:

Businesses with 25 or fewer employees
Businesses with 26-50 employees
Businesses with 51-100 employees

Table 8. Size Distribution of American Business, 2001*

Sector	Size Measure	All Firms^a	Firm Size:
Sector	Size Measure	All Firms^a	<20 Employees	20-499 Employees	500+ Employees
All Sectors ^a	Firms	5,657,774	5,036,845	603,562	17,367
	Employment	115,061,184	20,602,635	36,780,814	57,677,735
	Payroll ($000)	4,207,896,965	636,971,132	1,227,529,545	2,343,396,288

Manufacturing	Firms	292,121	221,803	73,077	935
	Employment	15,950,424	1,255,654	5,382,312	9,312,458
	Payroll ($000)	651,581,622	39,313,824	192,470,151	419,797,648

Trade	Firms	1,069,244	955,449	112,691	1,536
	Employment	21,032,378	4,245,371	6,082,027	10,704,980
	Payroll ($000)	623,055,250	115,490,979	211,099,531	296,464,741

Services	Firms	2,941,979	2,632,897	296,045	13,347
	Employment	55,622,909	10,103,762	17,291,599	28,227,548
	Payroll ($000)	2,103,061,974	300,371,285	539,539,451	1,263,151,237

Health Care	Firms	532,740	472,329	59,805	591
	Employment	14,534,726	2,279,569	4,626,256	7,628,901
	Payroll ($000)	491,257,415	91,375,483	139,004,398	260,877,534

Other	Firms	817,691	754,368	61,944	958
	Employment	7,920,747	2,718,279	3,398,620	1,803,848
	Payroll ($000)	338,940,705	90,419,561	145,416,015	103,105,129

Source:

* U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Advocacy, Statistics of U.S. Businesses: Firm Size Data website: http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/data.html. Payroll data are converted into 2004 dollars. The Office of Advocacy contracts with the U.S. Census Bureau to provide employer firm size data. These data for 2001 are the most recently available from the SBA.

a. These Statistics of U.S. Businesses data cover almost all non-farm employer businesses. Omitted are farms, railroads, and most government-owned establishments, the U.S. Postal Service, and large pension, health, and welfare funds (100+ employees) and non-incorporated firms with no paid employees.

Table 9. Size Distribution of American Business (Percentages)

Size Measure	Manufacturing	Trade	Services	Health Care	Other
	Sector Share of All U.S. Industry
No. of firms	5	19	52	9	14
Employees	14	18	48	13	7
Annual Payroll	15	15	50	12	8

	Percent of Firms, by Sector
	Manufacturing	Trade	Services	Health Care	Other	All Sectors
<20 Employees	75	89	89	89	92	89
20-499 Employees	25	11	10	11	8	11
500+ Employees	0.3	0.1	0.5	0.1	0.1	0.3

	Percent of Employees, by Sector
	Manufacturing	Trade	Services	Health Care	Other	All Sectors
<20 Employees	8	20	18	16	34	18
20-499 Employees	34	29	31	32	43	32
500+ Employees	58	51	51	52	23	50

	Percent of Payroll, by Sector
	Manufacturing	Trade	Services	Health Care	Other	All Sectors
<20 Employees	6	19	14	19	27	15
20-499 Employees	30	34	26	28	43	29
500+ Employees	64	48	60	53	30	56

NIOSH intends to place special emphasis on outreach to the smallest businesses (less than 100 employees). In part, this is because a 1994-1995 government survey of U.S. businesses found that workplaces with 10 or fewer employees experienced about one third of all work-related deaths although they only employed about 15% of all workers in private industry. In 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that there were 5,255,844 very small firms employing fewer than 20 workers, of which 3,821,128 employed fewer than 10 workers.

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