Portrait of Oregon Businesses by Size of Firm

More than half of the private-sector firms in Oregon had fewer than five employees in March 2012, and the number of firms in each size class decreases steadily as the size class gets larger.

Although smaller firms are more numerous, they generally employ a smaller share of the total number of workers than larger firms. For example, 89 percent of Oregon firms with fewer than 20 employees accounted for about 26 percent of private-sector employment in 2012. By comparison, firms with 250 employees or more represented less than 1 percent of the total number of firms but employed about 36 percent of Oregon workers. The distribution of wages paid in Oregon follows a pattern similar to that of the number of workers.

The distribution of employment by firm size also various by industry. Small firms play a particularly prominent role in the construction and professional and technical services sectors, while retail trade has a large number of firms with 500 or more employees. Larger firms also employ the majority of workers in manufacturing, where firms with at least 100 workers account for almost two-thirds of the sector's employment.
You can find more information in the full article, written by Research Analyst Phoebe Colman.