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NIOSH Programs > Small Business Assistance and Outreach > Sector Description
Small Business Assistance and OutreachInput: Sector DescriptionThe 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
Table 8. Size Distribution of American Business, 2001*
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)
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. |
NIOSH Program:Small Business Assistance and Outreach |
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