Fifth in a series of reports using data from the
U.S. Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics
John Haltiwanger
University of Maryland
Ron Jarmin
U.S. Bureau of the Census
Javier Miranda
U.S. Bureau of the Census
About the Business Dynamics Statistics
The Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) is a product of the U.S. Census Bureau that measures business
openings and closings, startups, job creation, and job destruction by firm size, age, industrial sector, and
state. The U.S. economy is comprised of more than six million establishments with paid employees. The
population of these businesses is constantly churning—some businesses grow, others decline, and yet
others close. New businesses constantly replenish this pool. The BDS monitors this activity to provide a
picture of the dynamics underlying aggregate net employment growth. More information about the BDS can
be found at http://www.ces.census.gov/index.php/bds/bds_home.
Overview
The Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics
(BDS)1 provides data on business dynamics for U.S.
firms and establishments with paid employees. This
briefing highlights some key features of the most
recent BDS update, which now has data through
2009—the trough of the recent recession.
The BDS shows a very large decline in gross job
creation from existing firms as well as startups in the
recession. Economy-wide job-creation rates and the
job-creation rate from business startups (new firms)
are lower in 2009 than in any year since at least
1980. The historically low rates in 2009 reflect many
factors, the first of which is the very large decline in
overall economic activity.
However, the recession exhibited not only a very
large decline in overall activity, but also an especially
large reduction in overall job creation, and in job
creation from startups and new establishments.
The historically low job creation rates from business
startups combined with a secular downward trend in
job creation and destruction rates over the past few
decades contribute to 2009's lower job creation rates.
