Number of companies rising further

On 1 January 2009, there were 844 thousand companies and institutions in the Netherlands, an increase by more than 46 thousand relative to one year previously. The number of one-man businesses again rose distinctly.

More than 471 thousand businesses and institutions employed only one person, i.e. nearly 56 percent of businesses are included in the category one-man businesses. In the period 2006–2009, the number of one-man businesses grew by 32.6 percent, whereas the total number of businesses grew by more than 16 percent. The average annual increase over the past three years was 5 percent. The number of persons employed in these companies rose by just under 2 percent. This means that the number of staff per company is diminishing each year.

Number of companies by size class

Bulk of companies are small

Last year, 91 percent of all companies employed fewer than 10 persons, 8 percent employed between 10 and 100 persons and 1 percent employed 100 or more persons. They were predominantly active in the sectors manufacturing industry, trade or business services. The sector business services accounted for over 40 percent of total growth. Growth was not affected by company size.

Rico Konen