The number of Americans who are self-employed approached 9.9 million in the
second quarter, up 7 percent from the first quarter, after three quarters of
sharp decline, reports the Office of Advocacy in the U.S. Small Business
Administration.
The number of self-employed people had been slowly climbing since
mid-2010 to 9.6 million in the second quarter of 2011, then dropped by 400,000
in the third quarter.
The second-quarter recovery in self-employed Americans is part of a
broader growth in the small-business sector, according to SBA economist Brian
Headd.
"Business births, self-employment and proprietors' income are rising,
while business deaths and bankruptcies are declining," he said.
The latest data on business births is for the fourth quarter of 2011,
when 6,000 new businesses started, according to Headd's report. Proprietors'
income edged up 1.3 percent to $1.2 billion in the second quarter.
Business bankruptcies declined 5.7 percent to 10,374 nationwide. However,
the latest data on business deaths is from the first quarter of 2011, 15
months old.
"Employment from business births, which has been on the decline for the
last decade has been rising in the most recent quarters," Headd said. "But
there are concerns over the slowdown in net job increases from small
businesses with fewer than 20 employees and those with 20 to 499 employees."
