Annual business population statistics show that there are now 5.4m businesses in the UK but there’s still concerns about the high proportion of businesses that do not employ.
SMEs are now responsible for 15.6m jobs, an increase in the last year from 15.2 million in the UK and historical trends indicate that they are likely to create 65% of jobs over the next decade. They have a collective turnover of £1,753
,900 generating 47.2% of private sector turnover, which has risen from 46.8% suggesting that SMEs have indeed been driving UK wealth creation over the last year.
The figures show that the number of unregistered businesses without any employees has risen to over 3 million and now make up around 56% of the business population, taking the total of businesses without employees to 3,473,088 or 76% of all businesses.
For the 1.3m micro, small and medium employers there are a need to improve on the current environment and create sustainable business growth.
Ian Cass, MD of the Forum of Private Business states:
“We need a business infrastructure that rewards business owners who employ and support their local community, not one that demotivates them with new ways to shuffle paper or methods to punish them for running their business as efficiently as possible.”
Getting more businesses to employ, export and grow quickly when the opportunities arise are crucial to creating a better living standard for all, not simply the business owners or their employees.”
