Rise in Business Numbers Continues

Rise in Business Numbers Continues

Note: (1) This information comes from Statistics New Zealand's Business Frame. It excludes business engaged in farming, and generally excludes businesses whose GST turnover is less than $30,000 per year. The term 'business' includes enterprises which may be a company, partnership, trust, estate, incorporated society, producer board, local or central government organisation, voluntary organisation or self-employed individual. (2) FTE = full-time equivalent person.

Business numbers

•There were 294,954 New Zealand businesses at February 2003.

•This is an increase of 4.8 percent from February 2002 and an increase of 29.6 percent since February 1997.

•New Zealand businesses engaged 1.5 million FTEs as either employees or working proprietors.

Business size

•97 out of 100 businesses engaged fewer than 20 FTEs.

•These smaller businesses account for 42 percent of the total number of engaged FTEs.

•Only 1 in 200 businesses engaged 100 or more FTEs.

•These larger businesses employed 38 percent of FTEs.

Goods-producing and service industries

•Less than 1 in 4 businesses (69,490) were predominately engaged in producing goods.

•Between February 2002 and February 2003 the number of these businesses increased 3.6 percent.

•More than 3 out of 4 businesses (225,464) were predominately engaged in the service industries.

•Between February 2002 and February 2003 the number of these businesses increased 5.2 percent.

Individual proprietorships

•Almost 1 in 4 New Zealand businesses were individual proprietorships, owned by a single person and not a limited liability company.

•The number of individual proprietorships (70,060) has remained static in the last year but has decreased by 4.2 percent since February 1998.

•These businesses engaged approximately 92,000 FTEs or 6 percent of the national FTE total.

•The number of FTEs engaged decreased by 1,230 or 1.3 percent between February 2002 and February 2003.

Foreign ownership

•There were 5,450 New Zealand businesses with 50 percent or more foreign ownership.

•This was 1.8 percent of all businesses, which is almost the same proportion as in February 2002.

•These businesses engaged 15 percent of all FTEs.

This is the first of three media releases related to Statistics New Zealand's business demography statistics. It will be followed on 10 November 2003 by a release focussing on businesses in the regions and 20 November 2003 with a release containing key points about New Zealand industries. More information is available at: www.stats.govt.nz/business-demographics.

Brian Pink

Government Statistician

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