Minority Women’s Businesses on Rise

By 2002, more than a third of all women-owned firms in California will be owned by women of color, nearly twice the national average, a survey to be released today shows.

California’s 35% of minority-woman business ownership is up from 27% in 1996 and tops the national average of 20%. It’s a higher proportion than any state except Hawaii, where 60% of the women-owned firms are owned by women of color, according to the Washington-based Center for Women’s Business Research.

The center projects there will be 258,296 businesses owned by women of color in California in 2002--the largest number in the United States.

Nationwide, the center projects that next year there will be an estimated 1.2 million businesses owned by minority women, employing more than 822,000 people and generating $100.6 billion in sales.

Between 1997 and 2002, the center estimates that the number of privately held, minority women-owned firms will have grown by 31.5%. That compares with 14.3% for all women-owned firms, 29.7% among all minority-owned firms and 6.8% among all U.S. firms.

That’s a plus for California’s economy, said Julie Weeks, director of research for the center, because those businesses are creating jobs and buying goods and services.

California has the greatest number of both Latino and Asian and Pacific Islander women-owned firms.