Last month we commissioned some market research and invited our readers and customers to take part. Our aim was to build an accurate picture of the UK economy from the small business owner’s perspective. The research covered topics including marketing spend, projected revenue, funding sources, headcount changes, sales and finance plus other priorities and predictions for the next 12 months. 374 UK SME business owners and decision makers took part.
This post will form the first part of a series of posts which will detail our findings.
Just this week the ONS released UK unemployment figures and we’re seeing a 17 year high of 2.63million. However, our research suggests that the UK’s small businesses could help reverse the rise in unemployment.
According to our survey 27% said they plan to create new jobs and increase their employee numbers over the next 12 months.
But what could this mean in real terms? We’ve created this info graphic to illustrate what might happen.
Source: Simply Business
Use the code below to share this on your site:
<a href="http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/news/2011/11/2011-11-18-if-27-percent-job/"><img src="http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/dms/sb/images/insight/graphs/infographic" border="0" alt="If 27% of small UK businesses created just one job (Infographic)" width="660" height="" > Source: </a><a href="http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/">Simply Business</a>
Excluding sole traders there are currently 1,178,745* small businesses with at least one employee in the UK today. If 27% of these each created one job this would equate to 318,261 new jobs.
There are 2.62million** unemployed in the UK, these 318,261 new jobs would see this figure drop to a little over 2.3million.
Around 60% of unemployed people claim Job Seekers Allowance**. We’ve calculated the Job Seekers Allowance saving based on 198,139 (60% of 318,261) fewer people claiming the minimum weekly payment of £53.45***. This would equate to minimum weekly government saving of £10,590,529.55.
Jason Stockwood CEO of Simply Business said:
“The optimistic picture these small businesses paint is heartening in these tough times. When you consider that SMEs account for 99.9 per cent* of the total enterprises in the UK and provide over 59 per cent* of the jobs in the private sector their continued success and growth is key to our economic recovery.”
*Figures taken from the Business Population Estimates for the UK and Regions 2010 issued by the department for Business Innovation and Skills, published by the ONS. http://www.bis.gov.uk/analysis/statistics/business-population-estimates
**Figures taken from Labour Market Statistics November 2011, published by the ONS. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/november-2011/index-of-data-tables.html
***Figures taken from http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Employedorlookingforwork/DG_10018757
