The estimated 29.6 million small businesses in the United States:
- Employ just over half of the country’s private sector workforce
- Hire 40 percent of high tech workers, such as scientists, engineers and computer workers
- Include 52 percent home-based businesses and two percent franchises Represent 97.3 percent of all the exporters of goods
- Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
- Generate a majority of the innovations that come from United States companies
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, September 2009