A new study of Oklahoma businesses indicates more are surviving longer than firms in the past and most Oklahomans are working for companies that are 10 years of age or older.
Entitled Business Establishment Survival in Oklahoma, the report was done by the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.
It found that the older establishments, those more than 10 years old employed about 74 percent of the total private sector jobs in March 2016 and were also the main employers within Oklahoma’s private-sector workforce. The hiring rate was only 3 percentage points below the national average and also an increase from the 63% reported in 2007.
It also found that 53 percent of the business establishments in Oklahoma were 10 years or older. Businesses that were four to nine years old accounted for 22 percent of the total private establishments while businesses less than four years old accounted for 25 percent.
The hiring rate at private businesses open less than 10 years had dropped by nearly 27% since 2007. Another finding of the study was the one year survival rate for private businesses born in 2015 fell to 78% from 82% the prior year.
It also found that the average employment size of newly-opened businesses had dropped in recent years. It had slipped from nine in 2001 to five.
The state also discovered that Oklahoma had seen more than 7,000 new private sector establishments open up in the state each of the last three years. That’s an increase over the 2010-2013 time frame which averaged 6,461.
Listen to Jerry Bohnen’s interview of Lynn Gray at the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.