Overview
This report provides a statistical overview of New Zealand firms. It has a specific focus on the country's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), examining their significance for the economy, their financial performance, the dynamics of SMEs and the significance of SMEs internationally.
The intention of the report is to improve the understanding of enterprise structure and dynamics in New Zealand. The statistics themselves simply record aspects of the aggregate economic activity of New Zealand enterprises. Hence there are limits to what can be concluded from the data because they cannot explain why enterprises change (or do not change) over time. However, the data can complement other research into how the qualitative features of New Zealand firms relate to their structure, behaviour and performance. For example, the management practices, governance arrangements and growth aspirations of SMEs are generally considered qualitatively different to larger firms.1 The drivers of change, or indeed stability, are the issues of key interest. This report only collects and reports the outcomes of those drivers.
This is the seventh such report produced by the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) and Statistics New Zealand.
Business Demographics as at February 2005
- 96% of enterprises employ 19 or fewer people
- 87% of enterprises employ 5 or fewer people
- 63% of enterprises have no employees
- The number of SMEs increased 3% in the year to 2005
- SMEs accounted for 30% of all employees
- Firms with 5 or fewer employees accounted for 11% of all employees
- From 2000 to 2005, SMEs accounted for 57% of all net new jobs in the economy
- There were 10,047 net entries into the Business Demography dataset as at February 2005
- 11 percent of people in the labour force were self-employed, as at March 2006
Business Performance in the 2003/2004 Year
- SMEs accounted for 39% of the economy's total output (deflated value-added)
- Firms with 5 or fewer employees have the highest average real profits per employee and increased their total real profits by 12 percent from 2003 to 2004
- Average real salaries and wages per employee tend to increase with firm size
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