Austin Tops in the Nation for Small Business Vitality

Austin is ranked number one in the nation for its small business vitality, according to a study by American City Business Journals, in which it rated the vitality of small business in major metropolitan areas across the United States, with a goal of identifying the metro areas most conducive to small businesses creation and development.

Austin’s score of 98.96 is almost two points higher than the second place ranking, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach with a score of 96.99. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida is third with 95.34. Scores start to drop from there, with Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida coming in third with a score of 90.94, and Provo, Utah coming in fifth with a score of 83.33.

Factors affecting the ranking:

• Austin has 44,163 small businesses out of a population of 1.94 million, with 2,342 small businesses per 100k residents.
• Small businesses showed 10% growth between 2010 and 2013.
• Austin’s gross metropolitan product was up 18% from 2011 to 2014.
• Private sector employment was up 14% from 2012 to 2015.
• Three percent of workers were self-employed in their own incorporated businesses.
• Small businesses provided 35.1% of private sector jobs.  

Small businesses were defined as having between one and 99 paid employees. Austin’s first place ranking was out of 106 major metropolitan areas with populations of at least 500,000 residents as of 2014.

The report was based on statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The study was reported by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.