Small-business owners power Idaho’s economy

They’re everywhere. Drive down almost any street, in any city and town in Idaho and you’ll see them. Retailers and manufacturers, wholesalers and contractors, one-person shops. They’re small businesses, and they are the dynamos that power Idaho’s economy.

The Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration recently released its latest Idaho Small Business Profile, and what it shows may surprise some people. Without its small-business owners, Idaho’s economy would not be nearly as strong as it is today.

The report shows that in 2004 an estimated 42,384, or 97 percent of the state’s employer firms, were small businesses. And that number does not even include the thousands of non-employer one-person firms scattered across the state. These businesses generated a sizeable amount of economic activity. In 2002, small firms (those with fewer than 500 employees) employed 57.1 percent of the state’s non-farm private sector employees. What is even more remarkable is that from 2001 to 2002 (the latest data available) firms with fewer than 20 employees saw net job gains of 3,193 while firms with more than 500 employees actually lost jobs.

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