Utah tops nation in pre-COVID growth of small-business jobs

Utah has topped another business-related national list.

The Beehive State is ranked No. 1 among states with the largest growth in small-business jobs, with a 23.52 percent increase in the 2016-20 period (pre-COVID), according to the “United States of Small Business” analysis by Next Insurance.

Surrounding states also fared well in the rankings. Utah is followed by Nevada, 23.11 percent; Idaho, 20.73 percent; Colorado, 19.58 percent; and Florida, 18.35 percent.

The analysis indicates that Utah has 301,265 small businesses (those with fewer than 500 workers) and those companies have 590,417 employees. That equates to 9,712 small businesses per 100,000 people and 46 percent of the state’s overall workforce.

Nationally, small businesses with one to 500 employees make up 99.9 percent of all businesses, according to the Small Business Administration. They employ over 47 percent of the workforce. The 31.7 million small businesses in the U.S. generated $9.4 trillion in GDP in 2019. That was 44 percent of the overall U.S. GDP.

While Utah had the largest small-business employment growth in the 2016-20 period, at the other end of the spectrum is West Virginia, which lost 4.06 percent of those types of jobs. Other states with meager small-business job gains are Louisiana, 5.41 percent; New Mexico, 5.47 percent; Alaska, 6.36 percent; and Wyoming, 6.37 percent.

The analysis also looked at minority ownership of small businesses. Utah in 2012 had 6.13 percent of its small businesses owned by minorities but saw that figure rise to 6.67 percent in 2017.

Details are at https://www.nextinsurance.com/blog/the-united-states-of-small-business/.