Micro enterprises generate more wealth than SME’s in the EU
SME’s, or enterprises with less than 250 persons employed are often seen as the “backbone of the European economy, providing jobs and growth opportunities” for the EU member states.
This Monday, the Eurostat released an overview of the performance of the non-financial business economy, looking at SME’s in particular. In 2015 the vast majority of the SME’s in the EU were micro enterprises, which are companies with less than 10 persons employed. In contrast, just 0.2% had 250 or more persons employed.
Micro enterprises dominate the EU market: there are more of them than all other types of companies, employing and producing much more than any other.
Micro enterprises, which have less than ten employees, have employed 40 million people in 2015, in the EU, while small enterprises employed 23.44 million people, and full-sized employed 46.25 million. On the other hand, in terms of GVA, micro, and SME’s generated €3.9 trillion.
As for Portugal, the wealth generated by PME’s reached €52.4bn, having employed almost three million people, according to Pordata.
In 2015 there was a total of 23.4 million SME’s in the European Union, according to the Eurostat. From those, 1.180.331 were Portuguese. The following year, the number of companies with this size increased in the country, to about 1.2 million.
From the whole wealth generated by smaller enterprises at the EU level, micro enterprises are actually the ones with the largest share of GVA, at 20.3%, SME’s are particularly relevant in Malta, Cyprus and Estonia.
Portugal is in line with the overall picture drawn in the EU: the country’s micro enterprises are likewise generating the largest share of the GVA (€17.99bn in 2015). As for 2016, Pordata showed that GVA from these enterprises increased to €19.37bn, while small and medium enterprises generated €17bn and €18bn, respectively.
Micro enterprises represent more than 90% of all EU enterprises, employing 29.1% of all EU workers. In most EU member states the ratio comes very close to this.
In Portugal this trend is replicated as well, with micro enterprises generating more job vacancies than full-sized companies. In 2016, there were 1.724.942 people employed in micro enterprises, while in full-sized ones there were 805,404 employees.