Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — in other words, enterprises with less than 250 persons employed — are often referred to as the backbone of the European economy, providing jobs and growth opportunities.
In 2016, an overwhelming majority (93.0%) of enterprises in the European Union’s non-financial business economy were enterprises with less than 10 persons employed (micro enterprises). In contrast, just 0.2% of all enterprises had 250 or more persons employed and were therefore classified as large enterprises.
The source dataset is accessible here.
The economic weight of large enterprises was considerably greater in employment and value added terms. In 2016, large enterprises provided work to one third of the EU’s non-financial business economy workforce (33.3%) and contributed to almost half of total value added (43.8%).
Focus on SMEs
In 2016, there were 24.7 million SMEs in the EU’s nonfinancial business economy, employing 95 million people and contributing EUR 4 018 billion to the value added. The economic contribution made by SMEs was particularly apparent in Malta, Estonia and Cyprus, with SMEs providing more than three quarters of the total value added generated in each of their non-financial business economies.
The source dataset is accessible here.
Today marks the start of European SME week.
For more statistics on business:
- An interactive tool showing data for Member States for 2016, where available, covering numbers employed, gross value added and number of enterprises by size class
- Eurostat' s Key figures on Europe 2019 publication and its digital version
- Statistics Explained article on statistics on small and medium-sized enterprises
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