Transition Rates
Transition rates measure changes in the numbers of employees in firms over time. They can be used as a proxy measure of business growth. The following series of graphs illustrates transitions of enterprises between size brackets between 2001 and 2006. The data include only enterprises in continuous existence between 2001 and 2006.
Few firms with no employees graduated into larger size brackets.
Only a small proportion of enterprises with zero employees in 2001 moved into larger size categories – 92.0 percent still had no employees in 2003, and 88.4 percent by 2006.
Figure 21. Transition Rates – Enterprises with zero EC in 2001
→ Full size version of Figure 21 [15 kB GIF]
Over two-thirds of firms with 1–5 employees remained the same size.
Of those businesses with 1–5 employees in 2001, 67.0 percent were still in the same size category by 2006. Over the same period, just over 3 percent of these enterprises had grown into the 10-19 EC size bracket, while almost 20 percent reduced their employee count to zero.
Figure 22. Transition Rates – Enterprises with 1–5 EC in 2001
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Firms with 6–9 employees are least likely to remain the same size.
Enterprises with 6–9 employees in 2001 were least likely to have remained the same size by 2006. Just 41.3 percent of these enterprises remained the same size. Of the enterprises that moved out of the employment bracket, there was an equal split between those getting larger and those getting smaller.
Figure 23. Transition Rates – Enterprises with 6–9 EC in 2001
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Just over half of firms with 10–19 employees remained the same size.
By 2006, 52.4 percent of enterprises with between 10 and 19 employees in 2001 remained the same size. Those enterprises that moved were more likely to move into a smaller employment bracket (26.3 percent).
Figure 24. Transition Rates – Enterprises with 10–19 EC in 2001
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Transition Rates for firms with more than 19 employees can be found in Appendix 4.
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