Midsize companies — firms with annual revenues of $10 million to $1 billion dollars — are now adding jobs at almost double the national average.
Middle market companies account for just 0.5% of all Texas businesses. But they employ 30% of the state’s workforce. Anil Makhija teaches finance at Ohio State University. He says midsized businesses are more reliable job creators than small ones.
“If you think about small firms, they do deserve our attention, because they are frequently the centers of innovation. But they have a very high failure rate.”
Craig Bouchard is CEO of Shale-Inland, based in Bellaire. He says midsized companies are less subject to market pressures than their larger counterparts.
“The large corporates — you know, the Fortune 500 types — they weather the storms by managing the size of their infrastructure. So they’re going to do fine coming through the recession in terms of survivability, but they do that by cutting jobs off, and that’s less so than in a medium-sized business.”
Last year, midsized firms created a quarter of a million jobs in Texas, more than in any other state. It’s estimated they’ve hired another 180,000 workers this year.
