Average Cypriot company employees less than 5 people

Forget small and medium sized enterprises: the Cypriot economy is dominated by micro-sized businesses, with only 4.7 persons employed per enterprise on average, according to the Census of Enterprises carried out by the Statistical Service Cystat in 2005.

Yes despite this, employment growth has been rising fast.

The report, which covered all sectors of the economy excluding agriculture and fishing, provides information on the distribution of the enterprises and establishments in Cyprus by branch of economic activity, size and legal entity and also the distribution of the employed population by branch of economic activity, size of the enterprise and gender.

The census covered 67,000 enterprises with 76,500 establishments employing 314,000 people.

As well as an finding that only 4.7 people were employed on average per enterprise, the census found that 60% of the enterprises employ only one person, 34% employ 2-9 people, 5% have 10-49 and only 1% employ 50 or more employees.

 

Wholesale and retail are bigger

 

The sectors with the largest employment numbers were wholesale and retail trade, with employment of 62,000 people. Hotels and restaurants employed 38,000 people, manufacturing 36,000 and the construction sector 32,000.

Employment in the period 2000-2005 rose significantly, from 269,000 in 2000 to 314,000 persons in 2005, recording an annual growth rate of 3.2%.

Private businesses accounted for the largest proportion (63%) of the total number of enterprises in 2005. Limited liability companies accounted for almost one third of the total (32%) and partnerships for only 3%.

A small proportion of the enterprises 2% had other legal entity.

Volume I of the Census of Establishments 2005 is available for sale from the Government Printing Office in Nicosia for C£12,00. The analytical tables and the results of the Census are available for downloading from the website of the Statistical Service under the section “Publications” (Category: Censuses, Theme: Labour, Subtheme: Labour.