“This year, women own a 50 percent or larger stake in 10.6 million privately held companies, the Center for Women’s Business Research said. This is almost 48 percent of the country’s privately held businesses. Companies owned by women have $2.46 trillion in sales and employ just over 19 million people nationwide, according to the latest data from the center, which is based in Washington.”“We estimate that women-owned firms are growing at close to twice the rate of all privately held firms, 17 percent versus 9 percent,” said Myra M. Hart, a Harvard Business School professor and chairwoman of the center.”
“It’s happened so fast,” said Ms. Davis, who has 18 employees. “When I was born, women didn’t usually own their own businesses. It’s a tremendous change in one generation.”
“Also, said Ms. Davis, “women often find niches in the marketplace where men aren’t, so they don’t have as high a profile.”
via TJ’s Weblog .
kirsten on April 30th, 2004 at 5:26 am
Women wear “stout shoes” in small business! Lots more stats to this story.
For instance…
-Women-led business revenues are up 39% since 1997.
-Women-led businesses are now employing 19.1 million employees and offering $1/2 trillion in employee compensation and benefits.
-Although 50% of women-led businesses are in the services sector — the fastest growth is coming from non-traditional industries for women-led firms — construction (+30%), public utilities (+28%) and agriculture (+24%).
-Illinois and Texas still rank among the top 5 states for companies owned by women.