Nearly half of all U.S. businesses — 49 percent — are home-based, according to Census figures released Wednesday, with professional services leading the pack.
In the Washington region, where professional services like public relations, consulting and graphic design represent the largest employment sector, the figures reflect a growing trend of self-employment and entrepreneurship.
“The Washington region has a huge white-collar work force,” saidMarie Tibor, a spokeswoman for the Greater Washington Initiative. The new Census figures “are fascinating, but not terribly surprising because … many professional services firms can operate from home.”
There are about 187,000 workers in the sector in the Washington region according to the Greater Washington Initiative, including those that work from home. Last year alone, the region added 30,000 jobs to the professional services sector.
Nationally, there are about 2.6 million people operating a professional services firm out of their home, or about 19 percent off all home-based businesses. About 58 percent of those were added after 1990 when technological advances began to make self-employment easier, said John McClain, a senior fellow at the George Mason Center for Regional Analysis.
“The professional services sector lends itself to [home-based businesses],” McClain said. “If you’ve got a phone and an Internet line you’re connected to the world. Fifteen years ago, PCs were not in very many homes. There were consultants, but not as many.”
In the Washington region, aging workers who are not quite ready to retire have also helped spur the growth in home-based businesses.
While Washington’s figure is probably not at 49 percent, McClain said, it does represent a significant portion of the economy.
“We know it’s big here but we don’t know how big,” he said. “We know that a lot of the federal contractors use [consultants] who have retired from the military or federal government and want to stay in the work force.”
