PHILIPSBURG:--- The Department of Statistics (STAT) from the Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Traffic & Telecommunications, conducted an Economic Census Survey (ECS) from May 2nd to September 7th, 2018. An Economic Census involves a count of all economic units actively operating within an economic territory as well as gathering data on their main characteristics.
Based on information from the Chamber of Commerce & Industry (COCI), there were 5,438 registered companies on St. Maarten in 2018. Part of the objective of the ECS was to verify how many are actively operating. Originally scheduled to be completed within 12 weeks, the census was extended to give more time to verify the non-visible/micro entities who are registered but not necessarily operating from an openly visible location. In this extended period, supplementary data was used with the assistance of SZV and the Business Licenses Department.
The scope of the census was 5,875 establishments, which is based on business establishments and foundations from STAT’s business mapping and the aforementioned additional sources. Of this amount, 2,152 were inactive while 813 could not be reached or located. STAT established 2,910 entities are
operational and received information from almost 2,800 of these actively operating entities.
Wholesale and retail trade is the largest industry in terms of number (830) and share (29.8%) of establishments with Accommodation and food service activities being the second largest industry.
Almost one-third of the entities (886) are concentrated in the Philipsburg area with the next largest concentration found in Colebay with 549 in its zone.
The number of employees at the time of the census is equal to 17,994, of which 8,911 are female. The number of employees before the September
2017 hurricanes Irma and Maria, totaled 18,175. The 17,994 amount, however, includes persons employed by establishments opened after the passing of the hurricanes and these account for 842 employees, with 419 being female.
Entities opened after the passing of the hurricanes amount to 268.
This total of new entities will deviate from the Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s total as the census only took into account whether the entity is active or not. Entities that register at the Chamber still have to register at the Tax Office, Business Licenses and SZV offices before they begin their active operations.
The legal form of the new entities is almost evenly matched between NV’s
(28.4%) and Sole Proprietorships (26.1%). The legal form with the highest percentage is BV with 40%.
Of the overall 2,781 total entities, NV’s account for 61.3% while Sole
Proprietorships and BV’s follow with 15.5% and 11.8%, respectively.
In the 1998 Business Census report, the size of an entity was determined by its number of employees along with its turnover. The 2018 census, however, did not ask for financial information, as this proved difficult to acquire during the pilot-phase of the survey. STAT is confident, however, that this aspect
can be reintroduced in follow-up censuses of this kind.
The majority of the number of businesses (approximately 80%) have 5 employees or less. Businesses with more than 50 employees account for just
2.4% of the total number of businesses, however in absolute terms, they
employ 7,479 employees, which is equal to about 42 percent of the
workforce.
Entities that have 11 to 50 employees, employ 4,362 employees, 24.2% of the workforce. Entities that have 6 to 10 employees employ 2,217 employees while entities that have 5 or less employees employ 3,936 employees.
A full report will be available by the end of November. The ECS is an internationally used exercise to collect and report on the number of business establishments according to their size, economic activity/industry, and location.
This census is a main data source for 1) Creating a comprehensive Statistical Business Register system; 2) Calculating more accurately the Gross Domestic Product (GDP); 3) Obtaining data on the number and distribution of economic establishments by industrial category, region and number of employees.
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