Taking Issue With a Number of Statistics

“Women-Owned Firms’ Hiring Outpaces Nation” (April 12) states that 15.5 million people worked in 7.7 million such businesses in 1994. It says this represents an increase of 11.6% from 1991 to 1994, without saying whether the increase is in businesses or in people working in such businesses.

No figures are given for 1991. In fact, the article says that the 1992 study was the first made, so there could be no figures for 1991. The 11.6% increase does not “work” for either businesses or people in comparing the 1992 and 1994 figures. An increase of 11.6% in the 5.4 million businesses would equal 6.02 million in 1994, not 7.7 million. An increase in the 11 million people employed would equal 12.276 million workers in 1994, not 15.5 million.

I had another problem. If 15.5 million people work in 7.7 million businesses, the mean number of staff people per business is only fractionally more than two (2.013 to be exact). But the story says that “most women-owned businesses are small, with less than 1% of the total having more than 100 employees.” If exactly 1% of 7.7 million businesses had exactly 100 employees, that would represent half of the total employees, leaving the other 99% of the businesses to have only fractionally more than one person each (1.023 to be precise).

That would mean that the vast majority of the “businesses” would be, in fact, individual women working for themselves. If that is the case, it would be worthwhile mentioning it in the article, but nothing is said about the meaning of the data, leaving the reader with a lot of numbers that tell nothing substantive about the nature of women-owned businesses.

DONALD SCHWARTZ, Santa Ana