Latest Cenus Data on Minority Firms in Minnesota

Bruce P. Corrie, PhD Concordia University Saint Paul corrie@csp.edu Tel: 651 641 8226 Latest Census Data from Census 2002 reveal that there are 22,405 minority firms in Minnesota with $2.7 billion in sales. 3497 of these firms had employees employing 31, 474 people with an annual payroll of 819 million dollars. Minority firms in Minnesota grew by 44 percent during 1997-2002 as compared to a growth rate of 8 percent of all firms. Minority firms as a total of all firms increased from 3.7 percent in 1997 to 5 percent of all firms in 2002. Black and Asian firms in Minnesota were among the top 10 in the nation in terms of growth in number of firms between 1997 and 2002. American Indian firms were 13th in the nation in terms of growth of firms during the same period. There were more than 4 million minority firms in the USA. Hispanics had the largest number of minority firms with over 1.5 million firms. Nationally Black firm had the highest growth rates among minority firms of 45 %- a fact not surprising and corroborated in recent national reports on entrepreneurship. Black firms also had the highest growth rate in receipts during the same period 1997-2002 among all minority firms (30%). Blacks had also the largest number of female owned minority firms. Nationally, minority firms grew much faster than the overall rate of 10 % during 1997-2002. Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders had a growth rate of 67 %, Blacks 45 %, Hispanic 31 %, Asian 24 % . White firms grew by 8 %. In Minnesota, Black firms were the largest group followed by Asian, Hispanic and American Indian firms. Black firms also had the highest growth rates (95 %) during the period 1997-2002. Asian firms were the largest group of minority firms in three categories: firms with paid employees, sales volume and annual payroll. http://ethnictrends.blogspot.com/