definition records a "head count' rather than the number of people who can strictly be defined as an employee.
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's Small and Medium Size Enterprise statistics highlight a number of features of the small business sector.
There were an estimated 4.5 million business enterprises in the UK at the start of 2006, an increase of 125,000 (2.9 per cent) on the start of 2005.
Almost all these enterprises (99.3 per cent) were small (0 to 49 employees). Only 27,000 (0.6 per cent) were medium-sized (50 to 249 employees) and 600 (0.1 per cent) were large (250 or more employees)
At the start of 2006, the number of enterprises with no employees was 3.3 million, equivalent to 73.0 per cent of all enterprises.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) together accounted for more than half the employment (58.9 per cent) and turnover (51.9 per cent) in the UK.
Small enterprises alone (0 to 49 employees) accounted for 47.1 per cent of employment and 37.2 per cent of turnover.