SME numbers rise but FPB is not happy
Sep 01 2005
The number of UK enterprises rose by 300,000 to an estimated 4.3 million at the start of 2004. Since 99.3% of UK businesses are defined as small (with any number of employees between none and 49) it is safe to say the increase came almost entirely from this group.
Small businesses, while providing the greatest number of enterprises, also make up 47% of the country’s employment and 37% of its total turnover. However, even with small firms such an economic lynchpin, the Government is not providing adequate support for new business start-ups, claim SME lobby groups.
According to the Forum for Private Business (FPB), an excessive number of people who have been encouraged by the Government to get off benefits and set themselves up in self-employment are destined for failure.
Reacting to the increase in start-ups, the FPB’s Andrew Mowlah complains that ‘the figures do not take into account the record number of people in Britain who are going bankrupt or into insolvency as a result of attempting self-employment.’
With personal insolvencies at their highest level for 45 years, the FPB believes the Government is putting too much effort into persuading the unemployed to seek self-employment, while not giving enough support to groups such as ‘young and ambitious graduates, enterprising women, and astute ethnic monitories’. To support its argument the FPB points to the fact that these groups in the US have a strong record of business success.
There are currently no comments on this article
Comments