There's are no two ways about it: San Diego county is not a big-business kind of town. We're light on Fortune 500 companies-currently we have just two. Instead we as a region are heavy on entrepreneurs and small businesses. Want to know what roles these less than massive companies play in our local economy?
The Small Business Administrationqualifies any company with fewer than 500 employees as a small business. By that measure we have about 92,639 according to the most recent numbers from the California Employment Development Department. So how many businesses are there in San Diego metro area altogether?
The number is 92,786. That's right. Only 147 of our businesses are considered well, not small. Another way to look at it. Two thirds of our businesses have four or fewer employees. On a national level the SBA says companies with few than 500 employees account for 99.9 % of the 29.6 million businesses out there. As for large businesses the SBA estimates there are only about 18,000 of them.
Type of Businesses. According to the EDD services make up the biggest segment of San Diego small businesses. In the fewer-than -50 employees category there are about 54,960 of these service businesses. What exactly is service business? It's anything from an accounting firm to hair salons to a law firm. Next up is the retail Retail trade by the way is just a fancy way to say restaurants shops and such. The third-largest segment of the small-business sector is construction & manufacturing, which has about 6,724 companies with fewer than 50 employees.
Technology:Of course, it's not all dry cleaners, landscapers & hair salons in San Diego. We have plenty of technology & biotechnology start ups in the region, too. According to Connect a nonprofit to fostering the tech community, more than 300 technology start ups were formed here in 2009. Connect says San Diego county added 51 start ups in the first quarter of 2010. 31% of them being of the bio tech persuasion & another 31% related to software. San Diego accounted for 13% of all the new technology start ups in the state, behind Los Angeles & Santa Clara County.
Federal Government: San Diego Has 140,000 federal employees -100,000 of them in the military alone. The military personnel, in particular, have helped small businesses in the down economy because they have stable incomes & continue to spend. Another bonus for our small businesses is the amount of government contracts that flow their way. San Diego small businesses were awarded some 699 contracts worth around $173 million. In 2009 the number was 634 for $172 million. For the first six months of this year, San Diego's small businesses have snatched 475 contracts worth about $126 million. Yahoo! So what do these small businesses contribute to the San Diego economy? A lot. Again according to the states EDD companies with fewer than 50 employees account for almost 37% of the county's payroll or more than $4.7 billion. If you look at companies with fewer than 500 employees that number balloons to more than $10 billion accounting for almost 78% of the county's payroll. --
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