With a few challenging years moving behind us, the future seems to hold promise for entrepreneurs.
We scoured the available data and found some promising small business statistics and trends that can help any aspiring entrepreneur understand what the business climate will be like in the year ahead and how to ensure success. From staffing numbers to financial trends, these statistics help provide an outlook for any aspiring small business owner to gauge their chances for success in 2023 and beyond.
- Statistics on the Landscape of Small Businesses
- There are 32,540,953 small businesses in the U.S.
- Small businesses comprise 99.9% of all firms.
- Half of all small businesses begin at home.
- Top Industries for Small Businesses
-
- Business services
- Food and restaurant
- Retail
- Residential and commercial services
- Health, beauty, and fitness
- Data on Labor Challenges
- By 2030, 600 million jobs will be needed, and small businesses will account for most of them.
- Under half of small businesses (40%) have unmet labor needs.
- Small businesses employ over 61.2 million employees in the U.S.
- At the end of 2021, businesses with 10–49 employees only had over 3 million job openings.
- The Importance of Going Digital
- Almost all small businesses (97%) say that digital technology will be important for their business in the future.
- Online sales are a vital source of revenue for 9 out of 10 small businesses.
- By 2040, 90% of purchases will be through e-commerce.
- Social media advertisements lead to purchases 37.9% of the time.
- Digital tools are used by 73% of small businesses to automate marketing campaigns.
- Small Business Finance Statistics
- The number of small businesses that are currently profitable is 65%.
- Around 65 million small businesses have unmet financial needs every year.
- Inflation is noted as the top problem for business operations for 32% of small businesses.
- Data on Startup Captial
- Personal savings are used by 75% of small businesses in order to get started.
- Bank loans are used by 19% of new small businesses.
- Credit cards are used by 17% of new small businesses.
- Only 11% of new small businesses used no capital to get started.
By understanding the common causes of concern for small business owners and seeing the impact small businesses have on the U.S. economy, you can get a clearer picture of what it will take to achieve your small business goals in the future.
For additional information on small business stats and more, join our small business blog community of 1,000,00+ entrepreneurs, hustlers, and dreamers. You can also learn more about the future of small businesses in our most recent survey. When you subscribe to our blog, you’ll receive in-depth small business resources to keep you moving forward.
Nicole Bowman
Nicole Bowman is a freelance writer who thinks turning research into stories is the best gig ever. She started writing billboards back in 2002, worked in book publishing in New York for many years and now she creates all sorts of engaging content for the web. Nicole lives in Rehoboth Beach, DE, with her husband, two sons and their poodle, Tootsie. She loves the great outdoors, bookstores and tennis.
