According to the Department of Innovation there are about 2,000,000 small businesses in Australia.
A small business is defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as one which has up to 19 employees. A micro business is one with no more than 4 employees.
Small business is vital to the Australian economy, the sector is responsible for about 35% of business contribution to GDP and 47% of all employment.
83% of small businesses are invloved in the delivery of various services including construction services.
About 10% of small businesses are involved in agriculture, forestry or fishing.
About 4% are involved in manufacturing.
Small businesses have lower survival rates than large businesses. The 2 year survival rate (June 07 to June 09) was 73% in NSW, 74% in Victoria, 72% in Queensland, 75% in SA, 73% in WA, 76% in Tasmania and slightly lower in the Northern Territory and ACT.
Males outnumber females as small business operators 68.5% to 31.5%
About 3% of small business operators in Australia are under 24 years old and n nearly 7% are over 65.
About half of all small business owners work more than 40 hours a week, about 6% say they work over 70 hours. About 20% of them work less than 20 hours a week.
As of 2006 the vast majority of small business operators earned less than $1,000 per week gross, about 21% earned less than $400 per week.
Over half of the small businesses with more than 4 employees had some form of web presence in 2010 but only about 30% of micro businesses had one.
According to a Sensis report Only about 10% of small businesses used social media for business purposes in 2010.
The infographic is being updated and will be re-posted here again as soon as possible.
