Further to the news last week that employment figures rose to the a record level, at close to 30m, the Office for National Statistics have also revealed that UK GDP grew by 1.0% between July and September, meaning the country’s economy moved out of recession.
This summer’s London Olympic Games were said to have added 0.2% to the growth figure purely on ticket sales, but have clearly had a wider effect in terms of employment and related tourism and retail activity.
There was further good news for private sector businesses following statistics published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The BIS revealed that there were 4.8 million private sector businesses at the beginning of 2012, with 99.99% of them SMEs. This figure was up nearly 7% from the 4.5 million recorded in 2011.
SMEs were said to account for 59.2% of private sector employment, with more than 23.9m people, and contributed 48.8% of the sector turnover with £3,100 billion. Michael Fallon, the business minister, spoke about the value of private sector businesses and recognised the need to support them. He said; “We have always said that private sector is central to healing and rebalancing our economy and this increase is another encouraging sign.”
Mr Fallow continued, saying; “We know that our entrepreneurs drive growth, so we will continue to do everything we can to help unleash and unlock entrepreneurs’ potential.” He said that some of their activities to support SMEs included additional tax reliefs, reforms to employment law and further cuts to red tape.
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