Statistical review of micro enterprises MY Tilastot have been updated: turnover of micro enterprises still falling, turnover of all enterprises continued to rise

A microenterprise is a company with fewer than 10 employees. In Finland, 95% of all enterprises are micro-enterprises. A recent change in the statistical methodology defined by the EU has led to a large increase in the number of micro-enterprises recorded. According to the current definition, all active enterprises are included in the statistics. However, the number of micro-enterprises also increased using the previous approach. The total number of micro-enterprises in the 2022 statistics is 514 025.

MY Tilastot show that the turnover of micro-enterprises relative to the population of the country as a whole is declining for the third year in a row, when inflation is taken into account. In 2022, the figure will be 11 200 € per capita. By contrast, the turnover of all enterprises has increased over the most recent period and over the longer term as a whole. The economic importance of micro-enterprises is particularly significant in small localities.

Micro-enterprises account for more than a fifth (22.4%) of all person-years of work in Finnish enterprises and more person-years than small and medium-sized enterprises. The majority of micro enterprises (70.6%) generate less than 0.5 person-years. The ratio of micro-enterprises' personnel to the national workforce as a whole has been declining over the long term, and now stands at just over one tenth (12.2%). The share of all enterprises' personnel in the workforce is over half (54.7%).

"In Finland's smaller municipalities, micro-enterprises often provide a significant number of business jobs. The declining job growth of micro-enterprises is a worrying trend. It is particularly noteworthy that the number of person-years worked by sole proprietors and part-time entrepreneurs has been increasing in most major industries over the last two years," says Ossi Kotavaara, Director of the Regional Excellence Research Group at the University of Oulu Kerttu Saalasti Institute.

By industry, the sectors with the largest number of micro-enterprises are agriculture, forestry and fishing (23.2%), professional, scientific and technical activities (12.8%) and construction (10.2%). The strongest micro-enterprise sectors in Finland are clearly distributed by sub-regional unit. Forestry and logging are concentrated in Lapland and Northern and Eastern Finland, while crop production and livestock industry, game farming and related services dominate the sub-regions in the coastal Western Finland. The sub-regions of Helsinki and Turku stand out as outliers, with the most common industries being head office activities; management consultancy and other personal service activities.

Statistical information to support regional planning and decision-making

The situation awareness and monitoring tools provided by the Microenterprise Statistical Review enables knowledge management and planning at municipal, regional and national level. MY Tilastot highlights key aspects of micro-enterprises in terms of key figures, sectors, turnover, jobs, growth, start-ups and closures, and exports of goods and services.

"The results can be examined at regional level and compared, for example, with the key benchmarking regions in your own area or with the situation in the country as a whole. It is also interesting to see what the statistics look like from the point of view of part-time entrepreneurs, sole proprietors and micro-employers or in different sectors. I hope that as many people as possible will use the statistical review to find out what is happening to micro-enterprises in their own region and in Finland," says Professor Matti Muhos, Director of the University of Oulu Kerttu Saalasti Institute.

MY Tilastot (in Finnish)

Text: Marge Ollila ja Ossi Kotavaara
Image: Anu Mäkinen