According to the reports of European Association, the total number of SMEs present in all EU countries contribute to about two thirds of the total employment in the non financial business economy.
In EU, SMEs provide employment to 90 million people, of which 40 million people are employed by 92% of micro firms, constituting about 30% of total employment.
The total number of jobs in the EU non-financial business economy increased by 11.3 million, of which SMEs accounted for an employment growth of 9.4 million jobs, while jobs in LSEs increased by 1.9 million.
In the period 2002-2008, of the total 67% of employment in the EU non-financial employment growth, the share of SMEs was 67%. The growth rate of SMEs (1.9%) annually was more than double that of large enterprises(0.8%). While large enterprises have lost employment in several sectors during this period, such as in manufacturing; mining and quaring; electricity, gas and water supply, SMEs showed increase in labor costs in wholesale and retail trade; services sector(4% annually) and hotels and restaurants (3.2%). Apart from this, labor costs are also found to increase in real estate sector.