Small businesses in the UK have grown by 200,000 over the last year, topping 5.7 million ahead of Small Business Saturday this weekend.
According to the Department for Business, the number of small businesses has grown by 2.2 million since 2000 and now accounts for 99.3 per cent of those in the private sector.
A large number of these small businesses are retailers.
They are thought to have a combined annual turnover of £1.9 trillion and employ around 16.1 million staff.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has called on people to support their local independent business this weekend for the fifth annual Small Business Saturday event.
“It’s great the campaign has been so successful in highlighting and promoting the now record number of 5.7 million small businesses working hard across the UK,” FSB chairman Mike Cherry said.
“Many of them are facing mounting pressure, with a record proportion of business owners currently expecting to downsize, sell or shut up shop.”
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