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Business Dynamics Statistics 

for Single Unit Firms

Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not 

represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau has ensured 

appropriate access and use of confidential data and has reviewed these results for 

disclosure avoidance protection (Project 7508369: CBDRB-FY23-046, CBDRB-FY23-

CES007-02, CBDRB-FY23-0422).

Christopher Goetz

Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau

FCSM Conference 

October 26th, 2023
BDS-SU Contributions

• Quarterly data for Single-Unit Firms

• Single-units are firms operating at one physical establishment

• 3 additional quarters of data for each release

• Compared to only Q1-basis of Core BDS

• Allows closer examination of business cycles such as Covid Recession

• Represents majority of all firms, and substantial fraction of employment

• Payroll measures

• Dynamics such as payroll creation and destruction - analogous to employment 

• Provides measures of payroll per employee

• For more details see CES Working Paper 22-57 by Beem, Goetz, 

Stinson, and Wang (Dec. 2022) 

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Summary Statistics and Shares for BDS-SU and BDS: 2020Q1

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SHARES Age 0 Age 1-5 Age 6-10 Age 11+ E 0-9 E 10-99 E 100-499 E 500+ Metro Nonmetro

BDS-SU 0.04 0.18 0.16 0.62 0.24 0.5 0.17 0.09 0.96 0.04

Core BDS 0.04 0.17 0.14 0.66 0.13 0.39 0.25 0.22 0.96 0.03

STATISTICS BDS-SU Core BDS Ratio/Diff 

estabs 5,148,756 7,162,267 72%

emp 52,662,126 132,833,423 40%

estabs_entry_rate 11.02% 9.34% 1.68%

estabs_exit_rate 11.06% 9.42% 1.64%

net_job_creation_rate 0.98% 0.60% 0.38%
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Total Employment
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Total Employment
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Net Job Creation
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Comparing Exit Rates Based on Q1 and Q2

Quarters 1 and 2 don’t differ much until 2020
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Single-Unit Exit Rates by Sector in 2020 Q2

Lots of variation in exit rate by industry sector
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Single-Unit Exit Rate by MSA in 2020 Q2

Small number of MSAs above average – highly skewed
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Exit Rates by MSA in 2020 Q2 (Mean=15.1%)

Top-10 MSAs

Exit Rate 

(%) Bottom-10 MSAs

Exit Rate 

(%)

1 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA 24.2 Amarillo, TX 10.1

2 Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ 22.0

Hickory-LenoirMorganton, NC 10.1

3 Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, HI 21.1 Ames, IA 10.0

4 Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI 21.0 Grand Forks, ND-MN 10.0

5 East Stroudsburg, PA 19.2 Sebring, FL 10.0

6 Trenton, NJ 19.0 Dalton, GA 9.9

7 Kingston, NY 18.9 Appleton, WI 9.9

8 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 18.8 Valdosta, GA 9.8

9 Vineland-Bridgeton, NJ 18.8 Elkhart-Goshen, IN 9.7

10 San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA 18.4 St. Cloud, MN 9.5
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MSA Exit Rates in 2020 Q2: Food and Accommodation (NAICS 72)

Strong correlation between industry exit rates within MSA 
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Single-Unit Entrants Based on Different Quarters 

Quarters 3 and 4 diverged from Quarters 1 and 2 in 2020
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Single-Unit Entrants in 2020 Q4

Many industries returned to 2019 

levels (Real Estate, Transportation) 

while others still lagged (Food and 

Accom.)
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Single-Unit Entrants by State in 2020 Q4

-2.00%

0.00%

2.00%

4.00%

6.00%

8.00%

10.00%

12.00%

14.00%

16.00%

18.00%

CA FL TX NY GA IL NC WA NJ PA CO NE MS VT

Share age 0 firms 2020 Q4 Difference 2020 Q4 - 2019 Q4

Entry was generally back to a normal (2019) level by 2020 Q4, but a couple

of the largest usual start-up contributors were still lagging (CA and NY) 
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2021 Business Dynamics Statistics

Sector 53: Real Estate Boom in Counties Around NYC

Manhattan Manhattan

Real Estate recovered around 

NYC by 2020 Q4
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2021 Business Dynamics Statistics

Sector 72: Food and Accom. Around NYC

Manhattan

Restaurants still destroying jobs in NYC
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Single-Unit Payroll Statistics (vs. Emp) in 2020 Q1

Statistic Payroll Emp Pay/Emp

Overall $572,864,650 52,663,188 $10,878

Creation from Entry $21,685,471 2,736,986 $7,923

Destruction from Exit $23,905,275 2,808,815 $8,511

Pay-Emp

Creation Rate 16.3% 14.5% 1.9%

Destruction Rate 11.1% 13.5% -2.4%

Net Creation Rate 5.2% 1.0% 4.2%
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Net Pay Creation Rate
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Pay per Employee
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Thank you!

Christopher.F.Goetz@census.gov

ces.bds@census.gov