UK small businesses are a vitally important component of economic activity

As the world wide credit crisis continues, the prediction for UK unemployment is now 2 million, the highest figure for 17 years.

There are now 4.3 million UK firms with less than 10 employees, which are 95% of all UK businesses. Less than 40% of these are registered for VAT, and they have turnover of less than £50,000 per annum.

14% of the total work force is self employed and it’s estimated that 25% will be self employed by 2020.

Self employment is important in an ageing workforce since someone who is made redundant at age 45 has only a one in 10 chance of finding a new job.

There are 400,000 new start-ups in the UK each year and 85% of those start ups will survive the critical first two years of trading.

These small businesses have the twin problems at this time of reduced credit being available to them and extended payment terms being enforced by larger companies.

Small businesses have the advantage of being much more worker friendly than their bigger company competitors. In the UK, in larger businesses, £24 billion is lost just in resolving in house corporate conflict each year.

We are helping with our UK Online Business Directory, which has 1.6 million businesses listed, the bulk of which are small businesses; by sending them qualified prospects, at no cost to them.