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Business Demography 2021

Key Findings

Construction sector grew 23.1% between 2017 and 2021

Online ISSN: 2009-6402

CSO statistical publication, 25 August 2023, 11am

In order to enhance the quality of the data, a review of Business Demography data for 2019 and 2020 was undertaken. As a result, the 2019 and 2020 publications were withdrawn in April 2023 and it was indicated, at that time, that revised estimates were expected to be published in Q3 2023.

These revised estimates for 2019 and 2020 are now included in the 2021 publication below. Please see the Information Note on Revisions of Business Demography 2019 and 2020 for additional details.

Key Findings

The number of active enterprises in the construction sector increased by 23.1% between 2017 and 2021, the largest sector increase in this time.
There were 2.3 million persons engaged and 365,766 enterprises engaged in economic activity in 2021.
In 2021, there was a year-to-year increase in the number of enterprises in all size classes.
The Other Services sector represent 59.4% of enterprises and 59.7% of persons engaged.
Small enterprises, i.e. those with less than 10 persons, engaged accounted for 92.4% of enterprises in the economy and 23.7% of persons engaged.
Large enterprises, i.e. those with 250 and more persons engaged, accounted for 0.2% of enterprises and 39.9% of persons engaged.
The number of enterprise births in 2021 at 35,783 was up 0.7% on the 2020 figure while the number of persons engaged associated with births fell by 36.4% to 37,897 in 2021. The Other Services sector accounted for 60.2% of persons engaged in newly birthed enterprises.
The number of enterprise deaths in 2020 increased by 1.1% compared with 2019, while the number of persons engaged in enterprise deaths dropped by 11.6% in the same period.

Statistician's Comment

Commenting on the release, James O’Rourke, Statistician in the Business Division, said: "Business Demography 2021 provides information on the business economy in Ireland. In 2021, there was an increase (+6.3%) in the number of Enterprises compared with 2020 and a 7.6% increase in persons engaged (See Headline Table and Tables 1 & 2).

The Professional, Scientific, & Technical activities sector had the largest decrease in Enterprise Births (23.5%). There was an overall decline in the number of persons engaged in newly birthed enterprises (26.6%) (See Figures 8 & 9).

Kerry (12.8%) and Donegal (10.8%) had the highest proportion of Tourism Enterprises, while Dublin (11,768) had the highest number (See Figure 5).

Persons Engaged increased in all size classes with the largest increase being seen in the 250 and over, which rose by 13.1% (See Table 4).

Dublin and Cork combined accounted for 43.4% of Enterprises in Ireland in 2021 (See Figure 2B).

The Other Services sector accounted for 59.4% of Enterprises and 59.7% of Persons Engaged. Construction accounted for 19.3% of Enterprises, but only 7.4% of Persons Engaged (See Figure 2A & 4).

The number of Large (250+ Persons Engaged) Enterprises represented just 0.2% of Enterprises but still accounted for 39.9% of Persons Engaged (See Figures 6 & 7).

Enterprise deaths increased across all sectors, with the exception of the Wholesale & Retail sector, and the Industry sector (See Figures 10 & 11).”

Summary Figures

The table below shows summary figures for Business Demography over the last five years, and comparison figures for ten years ago.

Business Demography 2021	2011	2017	2018	2019	2020¹	2021	% Change 2020 - 2021
Number of enterprises	293,128	333,801	331,323	337,011	344,144	365,766	6.3%
Persons engaged	1,665,947	2,025,970	2,088,234	2,260,698	2,142,021	2,305,318	7.6%
Enterprise births	17,403	26,767	24,803	26,364	35,533	35,783	0.7%
Enterprise deaths	25,194	27,813	28,307	30,046	30,380
¹The enterprise deaths figure for 2020 is an estimate as a 2nd year of inactivity is necessary to be counted as a final death (see Background Notes).

Open in Excel: Business Demography Summary Figures (XLS 10KB)

Annual changes and sectoral comparison

There were 365,766 active enterprises in the business economy in Ireland in 2021, representing a rise of 6.3% over the previous year. This growth is reflected in the Construction, and Real Estate Activities sectors, with increases of 12.4% and 9.6% respectively. All sectors saw expansion in the number of enterprises during the year, except for Transportation & Storage which decreased slightly by 0.3%. Accommodation & Food Service Activities had the lowest rise of all the sectors at 1.6%. There were over 2.3 million persons engaged³. This represents an increase of 7.6% in the number of persons engaged from 2020.

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses continues to be noticed here although, similar to 2020, the full effect is not yet seen. There was a slight decrease in employment in three sectors, namely Arts, Entertainment & Recreation, Other Service Activities, and Real Estate Activities with -1.4%, -0.4%, and -0.2% respectively. In all other sectors, employment grew with the biggest sectoral increase in the Human Health & Social Work Activities sector, which had a rise of 32.9% in persons engaged. However, this large increase can be mostly attributed to some large employers being reclassified to this sector. The overall expansion in employment was distributed across all size classes with the largest growth in the 250 and over class (See Summary Table and Tables 1, 2, 3 & 4).

	Active Enterprises (Index)	Persons Engaged (Index)
2008	100	100
2009	101	93
2010	101	88
2011	101	88
2012	103	88
2013	103	90
2014	102	93
2015	106	97
2016	106	102
2017	115	107
2018	114	110
2019	116	119
2020	119	113
2021	126	121

The Other Services sector accounted for almost three out of five (59.4%) of all enterprises in 2021, with the Construction sector accounting for just under a fifth (19.3%). While all sectors grew over the five years between 2017 and 2021 inclusive, the largest growth was in Construction at 23.1% followed by Financial & Insurance Activities at 11.6% (See Figures 2A & 3, Tables 1, 2 & 4 and Summary Table).

	Percentage of Enterprises by Sector 2021
Other Services	59.4
Wholesale and Retail	13.2
Industry	5.6
Construction	19.3
Financial Service Activities	2.5

At the county level, Dublin and Cork dominate the number of enterprises, with 119,942 and 38,804 enterprises respectively. Leitrim has the fewest enterprises, with 2,569 (See Figure 2B).

	Sector
Industry	9.4
Construction	23.1
Wholesale and Retail	-0.4
Financial	11.6
Other Services	8.1

Table 1 Active Enterprises (Number) by Activity and Year

Table 1: Active Enterprises (Number) by Activity and Year¹
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Mining and quarrying (B)	412	411	421	411	405	413	451	447	451	452	473
Manufacturing (C)	14,336	14,533	14,649	14,628	15,242	15,583	16,701	16,542	16,461	16,894	18,204
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (D)	423	456	485	483	515	551	637	668	663	760	821
Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (E)	961	985	985	975	1,014	1,008	1,028	1,046	1,024	1,065	1,095
Construction (F)	50,256	49,530	48,502	47,349	50,546	51,568	57,255	57,626	59,175	62,664	70,456
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G)	47,030	47,554	47,061	45,618	46,626	46,595	48,598	47,789	46,786	46,792	48,390
Transportation and storage (H)	26,370	26,284	25,734	24,595	25,066	24,614	25,736	24,876	24,851	24,127	24,050
Accommodation and food service activities (I)	17,693	17,892	17,913	17,790	18,336	18,377	19,205	19,172	19,418	19,062	19,361
Information and communication (J)	12,350	13,099	13,578	13,687	14,246	14,570	15,953	15,910	16,418	17,075	18,533
Financial and insurance activities excluding activities of holding companies (K-642)²	6,986	7,310	7,502	6,593	7,009	6,557	8,121	8,670	8,238	8,829	9,060
Real estate activities (L)	11,387	11,986	12,065	11,912	13,228	13,249	15,178	14,913	15,788	15,603	17,101
Professional, scientific and technical activities (M)	37,685	38,805	38,911	38,795	40,186	40,452	43,587	43,635	45,161	46,742	49,583
Administrative and support service activities (N)	14,990	15,548	15,764	15,412	16,423	16,495	18,716	19,050	18,097	18,797	19,710
Education (P)	11,553	12,252	12,452	12,986	13,502	13,665	14,440	14,096	14,973	15,080	15,885
Human health and social work activities (Q)	18,910	19,446	19,251	19,897	20,255	19,808	20,989	20,451	21,068	21,539	22,762
Arts, entertainment and recreation (R)	9,777	10,287	10,289	10,538	10,951	10,847	11,893	11,535	12,273	12,190	12,974
Other Service activities excluding activities of membership organisations (S-S94)³	12,009	12,695	12,809	13,214	13,844	14,101	15,313	14,897	16,166	16,473	17,308
Business economy excluding activities of holding companies, public administration and activities of membership organisations (B to S,-K6420, -O, -S94)	293,128	299,073	298,371	294,883	307,394	308,453	333,801	331,323	337,011	344,144	365,766
¹ This Business Demography Series commenced in 2008.
² NACE code 64.20 Activities of holding companies is excluded from sector K.
³ NACE codes in S94 Activities of membership organisations are excluded from sector S.

Open in Excel: Business Demography 2021 Table 1 (XLS 14KB)

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When looking at the distribution of persons engaged across all sectors in 2021, the Other Services sector accounted for 59.7% of the total, followed by Wholesale & Retail (16.6%) and Industry (11.8%) (See Figure 4 and Table 2).

	Distribution of Persons Engaged by Sector 2021
Other Services	59.7
Wholesale and Retail	16.6
Industry	11.8
Construction	7.4
Financial Service Activities	4.5

Table 2 Persons Engaged (Number) by Activity and Year

Table 2: Persons Engaged (Number) by Activity and Year¹
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Mining and quarrying (B)	4,269	4,180	4,146	4,058	4,164	4,058	4,155	4,113	4,713	3,014	3,116
Manufacturing (C)	181,050	178,700	181,091	189,966	200,047	213,117	219,762	227,338	239,199	236,067	245,560
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (D)	8,842	8,735	8,246	8,496	8,846	9,206	9,588	9,135	9,562	10,918	11,622
Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (E)	7,534	7,578	7,508	8,025	8,740	8,971	9,461	10,049	10,924	10,661	10,964
Construction (F)	94,640	89,351	91,122	99,860	108,720	120,341	137,239	144,521	158,227	157,349	170,444
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G)	328,147	327,687	332,768	336,866	345,911	356,057	367,405	374,968	390,546	372,853	383,020
Transportation and storage (H)	92,582	91,852	91,644	91,985	94,622	97,662	100,629	102,095	108,567	104,443	105,689
Accommodation and food service activities (I)	146,374	150,735	155,105	161,097	170,222	179,827	189,186	194,889	222,716	157,946	166,424
Information and communication (J)	69,290	72,684	77,060	82,010	87,597	95,220	102,027	107,256	118,709	122,763	134,280
Financial and insurance activities excluding activities of holding companies (K-642)²	96,545	97,673	96,371	96,460	97,836	99,502	102,725	105,424	106,603	104,241	104,561
Real estate activities (L)	19,095	20,111	20,848	22,775	24,723	25,744	28,088	29,219	32,870	30,866	30,807
Professional, scientific and technical activities (M)	108,630	110,924	115,426	120,245	127,591	135,887	145,353	154,162	170,797	172,685	182,657
Administrative and support service activities (N)	102,328	104,559	106,682	112,448	123,962	132,644	140,181	144,742	167,374	148,707	154,853
Education (P)	147,369	147,643	149,390	151,939	153,426	158,354	163,016	167,403	186,389	182,682	194,622
Human health and social work activities (Q)	190,421	195,047	198,108	205,177	211,318	217,720	225,881	230,071	241,308	244,796	325,423
Arts, entertainment and recreation (R)	35,588	36,259	36,754	37,442	38,082	39,254	41,365	42,104	47,618	40,867	40,282
Other Service activities excluding activities of membership organisations (S-S94)³	33,243	34,430	35,005	34,954	35,961	37,619	39,909	40,745	44,576	41,163	40,994
Business economy excluding activities of holding companies, public administration and activities of membership organisations (B to S,-K6420, -O, -S94)	1,665,947	1,678,148	1,707,274	1,763,803	1,841,768	1,931,183	2,025,970	2,088,234	2,260,698	2,142,021	2,305,318
¹ This Business Demography Series commenced in 2008.
² NACE code 64.20 Activities of holding companies is excluded from sector K.
³ NACE codes in S94 Activities of membership organisations are excluded from sector S.

Open in Excel: Business Demography 2021 Table 2 (XLS 14KB)

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Tourism enterprises

Figure 5 shows the percentage of enterprises in the tourism sectors as defined by Eurostat (see Background Notes), across each county. Kerry has the highest proportion of enterprises that fall into the tourism category, at 12.8% of total enterprises in the county, followed by Donegal with 10.8%. While Dublin has the largest number of tourism enterprises, at 11,768 this was 9.8% of overall enterprises in Dublin. Monaghan has the lowest percentage of enterprises in the tourism sector, with 5.4%.

Size class composition of the business economy

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) accounted for 99.8% of the total enterprise population for 2021. They also accounted for 60.1% of total persons engaged, with large enterprises (employing 250 or more persons) employing 39.9% of persons engaged, despite accounting for only a small fraction (0.2%) of total enterprise numbers.

Across each size class the Other Services sector had the majority of enterprises, with 59.7% (201,698) of enterprises employing fewer than 10 and 56.3% (12,799) in the 10 to 49 category, while Industry represented 21.8% (188) of large enterprises (250 or more persons engaged), with Construction contributing 3.0% (26) of large enterprises (See Figures 6 & 7 and Tables 3 & 4).

	Enterprises	Persons Engaged
Under 10	92.4	23.7
10 to 49	6.2	19.2
50 to 249	1.1	17.3
250 and over	0.2	39.9

	Industry	Other Services	Construction	Wholesale and Retail	Financial
Under 10	5.3	59.7	20.2	12.4	2.4
10 to 49	7.8	56.3	8.8	24.6	2.5
50 to 249	15.3	56.2	5.4	19.3	3.8
250 and over	21.8	54.7	3	12.9	7.6

Table 3 Active Enterprises (Number) by Size Class and Year

Table 4 Persons Engaged (Number) by Size Class and Year

Enterprise births and deaths

This Business Demography release relates to reference year 2021. However, data on enterprise deaths are available up to reference year 2020 only, due to the fact that two complete sets of yearly data are required for an enterprise to be declared a final enterprise death. All enterprise births were followed for 5 years (2016 to 2020) to assess their survival rate and the resulting effect on employment.

The one-year survival rate (relating to enterprises born in one year and still active in the next year) was 80.0% for enterprises born in 2020 who were still active in 2021 (See Table 5).

	Industry	Other Services	Construction	Wholesale and Retail	Financial	Total
2011	895	10851	2589	2683	385	17403
2012	926	11238	2757	2704	519	18144
2013	968	10249	2473	2304	639	16633
2014	1110	15179	3526	2468	418	22701
2015	1185	13637	4226	2573	544	22165
2016	1329	14094	4623	2848	466	23360
2017	1410	15856	5345	2933	1223	26767
2018	1308	14162	5088	2933	1312	24803
2019	1378	16287	5151	2823	725	26364
2020	1929	20654	8476	3428	1046	35533
2021	1761	20097	10508	2571	846	35783

Enterprise births

There were 35,783 new enterprise births in 2021, a slight increase of 0.7% on 2020.

The largest numerical decrease in the number of births was in the Professional, Scientific, & Technical Activities sector which fell by -1,189 enterprises, from 5060 in 2020 to 3,871 in 2021. There were declines in 10 of the 17 sectors including in the Accommodation & Food Service Activities and Wholesale & Retail sectors with drops in the number of births of -995 and -857, respectively.

The number of births increased in the Construction and Real Estate Activities sectors in 2021, by 2,032 and 1,048 enterprises, respectively (See Figure 8 and Table 5).

	Distribution of Persons Engaged in Enterprise Births by Sector 2021
Other Services	60.2
Wholesale and Retail	8.5
Industry	4.2
Construction	26.1
Financial Service Activities	0.9

Persons engaged in enterprise births

There were 37,897 persons engaged in newly birthed enterprises in 2021. This is a decrease from the 2020 figure of 51,679 persons engaged in newly birthed enterprises. The Other Services sector accounted for 60.2% (22,818) of persons engaged in enterprise births, followed by Construction (26.1%) and Wholesale & Retail (8.5%) (See Figure 9).

Table 5 Enterprise Births (Number) by Activity and Year

Table 5: Enterprise Births (Number) by Activity and Year¹
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Mining and quarrying (B)	..	20	26	18	18	24	34	36	27	38	25
Manufacturing (C)	770	806	841	997	1,060	1,196	1,260	1,120	1,237	1,700	1,636
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (D)	39	34	..	31	43	57	66	79	57	98	66
Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (E)	..	66	..	64	64	52	50	73	57	93	34
Construction (F)	2,589	2,757	2,473	3,526	4,226	4,623	5,345	5,088	5,151	8,476	10,508
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G)	2,683	2,704	2,304	2,468	2,573	2,848	2,933	2,933	2,823	3,428	2,571
Transportation and storage (H)	981	1,005	805	1,026	1,044	1,083	1,146	963	1,269	1,576	1,864
Accommodation and food service activities (I)	1,232	1,206	1,142	1,251	1,452	1,462	1,539	1,760	1,937	1,813	818
Information and communication (J)	1,181	1,275	1,249	1,333	1,375	1,527	1,632	1,725	1,772	2,228	1,662
Financial and insurance activities excluding activities of holding companies (K-642)²	385	519	639	418	544	466	1,223	1,312	725	1,046	846
Real estate activities (L)	855	915	862	1,171	1,406	1,330	1,708	1,272	1,239	1,424	2,472
Professional, scientific and technical activities (M)	2,643	2,715	2,431	2,800	3,000	3,174	3,508	3,670	3,989	5,060	3,871
Administrative and support service activities (N)	899	1,059	952	1,153	1,296	1,407	1,798	1,785	1,528	2,049	1,818
Education (P)	461	515	501	1,413	..	887	934	495	896	1,250	1,683
Human health and social work activities (Q)	1,255	1,167	912	1,909	1,181	1,126	1,277	902	1,287	1,958	2,225
Arts, entertainment and recreation (R)	468	522	529	1,357	..	863	987	625	924	1,306	1,672
Other Service activities excluding activities of membership organisations (S-S94)³	876	859	866	1,766	1,172	1,235	1,327	965	1,446	1,990	2,012
Business economy excluding activities of holding companies, public administration and activities of membership organisations (B to S,-K6420, -O, -S94)	17,403	18,144	16,633	22,701	22,162	23,360	26,767	24,803	26,364	35,533	35,783
¹ This Business Demography Series commenced in 2008.
² NACE code 64.20 Activities of holding companies is excluded from sector K.
³ NACE codes in S94 Activities of membership organisations are excluded from sector S.
.. indicates that the data has been suppressed to protect the confidentiality of individual enterprises.

Open in Excel: Business Demography 2021 Table 5 (XLS 14KB)

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	Industry	Other Services	Construction	Wholesale and Retail	Financial	Total
2011	1347	13250	5609	4528	523	25257
2012	1325	15346	4974	4091	780	26516
2013	1471	17575	5279	4454	769	29548
2014	1243	16091	4192	3682	697	25905
2015	1332	16498	4390	3693	882	26795
2016	1225	15125	4229	3356	594	24529
2017	1379	16953	4903	3841	737	27813
2018	1411	17090	5119	3799	888	28307
2019	1393	18913	5242	3646	852	30046
2020	1367	19193	5597	3258	965	30380

Enterprise deaths

There were 30,380 enterprises that ceased trading during 2020, containing approximately 40,320 persons engaged. This represents an increase of 1.1% in enterprise deaths compared with 2019.Enterprise death figures for 2020 are estimated, as an enterprise needs two full years of inactivity before being declared a final death.

The number of enterprise deaths increased across all sectors in 2021, with the exception of the Wholesale & Retail sector and the Industry sector, which decreased by 10.6% and 1.9% respectively. The Other Services sector showed the highest number of enterprise deaths with 19,193 enterprises ceasing activity or 63.2% of total deaths. The Construction sector was responsible for the second largest number of deaths at 5,597 (18.4%) (See Figure 10 and Table 6).

	Percentage of Persons Engaged in Enterprises Deaths by Sector 2020
Other Services	66.2
Wholesale and Retail	12.6
Industry	4.1
Construction	15.4
Financial Service Activities	1.6

Persons engaged in enterprise deaths

There were 40,320 persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2020. The Other Services sector accounted for 66.2% (26,708) of these, followed by the Construction sector with 15.4% (6,222). The Financial & Insurance Activities sector had the least with 1.6% (638) (See Figure 11).

Table 6 Enterprise Deaths (Number) by Activity and Year

Table 6: Enterprise Deaths (Number) by Activity and Year¹
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020 ⁴
Mining and quarrying (B)	..	..	..	..	25	21	..	28	31	33
Manufacturing (C)	1,204	1,177	1,297	1,102	1,190	1,103	1,225	1,256	1,276	1,220
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (D)	..	..	..	35	..	34	..	37	32	53
Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (E)	80	93	95	..	78	67	61	90	54	61
Construction (F)	5,609	4,974	5,279	4,192	4,390	4,229	4,903	5,119	5,242	5,597
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G)	4,528	4,091	4,454	3,682	3,693	3,356	3,841	3,799	3,646	3,258
Transportation and storage (H)	1,132	1,815	2,163	1,731	1,546	1,392	1,687	1,968	2,256	2,582
Accommodation and food service activities (I)	1,915	1,782	1,966	1,882	1,975	1,875	1,916	1,750	2,152	1,929
Information and communication (J)	1,277	1,445	1,647	1,639	1,716	1,497	1,775	1,786	1,650	1,609
Financial and insurance activities excluding activities of holding companies (K-642)²	523	780	769	697	..	594	737	888	852	965
Real estate activities (L)	1,285	1,273	1,506	1,307	..	1,240	1,629	1,568	1,785	1,610
Professional, scientific and technical activities (M)	3,459	3,666	3,944	3,609	3,600	3,442	3,704	3,805	3,839	3,771
Administrative and support service activities (N)	1,292	1,308	1,682	1,365	1,449	1,319	1,456	1,595	1,606	1,729
Education (P)	411	743	876	906	950	898	897	911	1,170	1,222
Human health and social work activities (Q)	1,053	1,365	1,527	1,514	1,579	1,405	1,494	1,472	1,567	1,630
Arts, entertainment and recreation (R)	556	837	1,013	965	954	899	1,004	972	1,323	1,347
Other Service activities excluding activities of membership organisations (S-S94)³	870	1,112	1,251	1,173	1,222	1,158	..	1,263	1,565	1,764
Business economy excluding activities of holding companies, public administration and activities of membership organisations (B to S,-K6420, -O, -S94)	25,194	26,461	29,469	25,905	26,795	24,529	27,813	28,307	30,046	30,380
¹ This Business Demography Series commenced in 2008.
² NACE code 64.20 Activities of holding companies is excluded from sector K.
³ NACE codes in S94 Activities of membership organisations are excluded from sector S.
⁴The enterprise deaths figures for 2020 are an estimate as a 2nd year of inactivity is necessary to be counted as a final death (see Background Notes).
.. indicates that the data has been suppressed to protect the confidentiality of individual enterprises.

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Table 3: Active Enterprises (Number) by Size Class and Year¹
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
All active enterprises	293,129	299,074	298,379	294,884	307,395	308,454	333,801	331,323	337,011	344,144	365,766
Under 10 persons engaged	271,483	277,413	276,349	271,981	283,454	283,203	307,423	304,248	308,152	317,842	338,100
10-19 persons engaged	11,690	11,627	11,788	12,170	12,678	13,184	13,699	13,936	14,507	13,589	14,322
20 - 49 persons engaged	6,385	6,411	6,512	6,785	7,089	7,646	8,041	8,320	9,042	7,943	8,392
50 - 249 persons engaged	2,971	2,998	3,073	3,277	3,472	3,675	3,868	3,995	4,401	3,935	4,089
250 and over persons engaged	600	625	657	671	702	746	770	824	909	835	863
¹ This Business Demography Series commenced in 2008.

Table 4: Persons Engaged (Number) by Size Class and Year¹
	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
All persons engaged size classes	1,665,947	1,678,148	1,707,062	1,763,803	1,841,768	1,931,183	2,025,970	2,088,234	2,260,698	2,142,021	2,305,318
Under 10	460,589	463,774	463,680	469,411	485,498	492,548	516,180	516,351	532,250	530,250	545,717
10-19	157,219	155,754	157,887	162,730	169,774	176,269	182,982	186,745	194,836	182,393	192,488
20 - 49	190,016	190,738	194,157	201,915	211,203	227,495	238,474	248,395	270,752	236,720	249,492
50 - 249	284,337	286,792	294,328	315,743	336,002	355,900	377,045	387,118	430,688	379,672	397,941
250 and over	573,786	581,090	597,010	614,004	639,291	678,971	711,289	749,625	832,172	812,986	919,680
¹ This Business Demography Series commenced in 2008.

Business Demography 2021

Key Findings

Construction sector grew 23.1% between 2017 and 2021

Key Findings

Statistician's Comment

Summary Figures

Annual changes and sectoral comparison

Tourism enterprises

Size class composition of the business economy

Enterprise births and deaths

Enterprise births

Persons engaged in enterprise births

Enterprise deaths

Persons engaged in enterprise deaths

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