Small Business Statistics

Statistics about Australian small businesses

The following Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publications about small business can be downloaded free of charge from the ABS website (see External Links).

Tip: The easiest way to find the publication you need is to copy and paste the title of the publication into the search box on the ABS website.

Small business in Victoria

Key features of the Victorian small business sector include:

Number of small businesses

As at June 2007, there were approximately 482,883 small businesses in Victoria, representing 25% of the national total, or 96% of all businesses in Victoria. The top five sectors with the greatest number of small businesses are:

• property and business services (25.8% of the total)
• construction (15.9%)
• retail (10.8%)
• agriculture, forestry and fishing (10.1%)
• finance and insurance (7.3%)

Growth rate

• an average annual growth of 2.7% when compared with June 2006

Number of rural and regional businesses

• 28.4% of all small businesses in Victoria are regionally-based
• rural and regional small businesses comprise by far the largest proportion of businesses in regional Victoria, contributing to social cohesion and export growth

Small business demographics

• nearly 62% of small business operators are home-based; estimated to be around 220,000 in Victoria, growing at 3% per year since 2001
• nearly 32% of small business operators in Victoria are women
• nearly 29% of Victoria’s small business operators are born overseas

Number of employees

• 61% of Victoria’s small businesses do not employ anyone
• 27% of Victoria’s small businesses have 1-4 employees
• 12% of Victoria’s small businesses have 5-19 employees

Business exit and entry rates

• the small business exit rate in Victoria in 2006-07 was 14.3%, lower than the national average of 15.0% and the third lowest among all states and territories, after Tasmania (13.0%) and South Australia (13.3%)
• Victoria’s business entry rate in 2006-07 was 17.0%, slightly below the national average of 17.6%

Export

• there were 3,665 small merchandise exporters in Victoria in 2007-08, compared with 4,972 in New South Wales and 2,449 in Queensland 
• Victoria's 27.2% share of the national total of small merchandise exporters is above Victoria’s 25% share of the national population

Innovation

• according to the ABS 2005 Innovation Survey, 29% of the 25,550 Victorian small businesses surveyed are regarded as 'innovating businesses'. This was higher than the national average (28%) and the third highest among all states and territories, after South Australia (36%) and Western Australia (30%)