December 2014

• In late December, we corrected an error in the Industry Market report series that calculated average annual small business sales for all small establishments, not just independent small businesses, which is the intent of this metric. In some cases, the change also created new values in one or more Employment Class Trends tables.

• In the first (June 2014) BizBenchmarker series release, the industry sales per employee values (SPE) originally applied the US SPE benchmark to all market area situations. Beginning with the December 2014 release, BizBenchmarker reports with local market selections will generally apply industry-specific local sales per employee data. Where localized data is unavailable, industry-specific projections may be applied from larger market areas. When the US market is selected as the benchmark, the US value will continue to be applied.