Small businesses will play an important role in the economic future of Alabama. The Office of Advocacy’s Small Business Profile for the state, released today, provides details about small business employment, business starts and closings, bank lending in 2008, business ownership by minorities, women, and veterans, and firm and employment change by major industry and firm size.
“Alabama continues to depend on the health and ingenuity of its small business sector for the state’s economic growth,” said Susan Walthall, Acting Chief Counsel for Advocacy. “In today’s economic climate, it is especially important for policymakers to keep small business concerns in mind as they formulate policy.”
Small businesses have proven to be important employment generators. They created 80.4 percent of the state’s net new jobs between 2005 and 2006. They accounted for 49.7 percent of Alabama’s total private sector employment in 2006 (using the latest available data).
Small employers in the United States numbered 6 million in 2006, and represented 99.7 percent of the nation’s employers and 50.2 percent of its private sector employment.
In 2008, the United States saw a private sector employment decline of 0.7 percent, while employment in Alabama decreased by 1.4 percent. Also in 2008, U.S. real gross domestic product increased by 0.7 percent and Alabama’s gross state product increased by 0.7 percent.
As additional small business data become available over the coming months, they will be incorporated in a new edition of the state profiles, to be issued in early 2010.
For more information and a complete copy of the state and territory small business profiles, visit the Office of Advocacy website at www.sba.gov/advo/research/profiles/.
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The Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is an independent voice for small business within the federal government. The presidentially appointed Chief Counsel for Advocacy advances the views, concerns, and interests of small business before Congress, the White House, federal agencies, federal courts, and state policymakers. For more information, visit www.sba.gov/advo, or call (202) 205-6533.