Low-Tech Businesses Are Booming
"Forget Web sites and molecular imaging. The biggest fields of opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs are the same mundane ventures that have been kicking around for decades.
Think landscaping companies, child-care providers, janitorial services and nail and hair salons. In a generally buoyant market for low-technology businesses, those are four of the biggest winners by far. Altogether, sole proprietorships in the United States, a rough measure of the size of the small-business low-technology sector, grew by nearly 4 percent in 2002, the latest year with statistics available, to 17.6 million, and their combined revenue increased by 5.5 percent, to $770 billion. The figures come from the Census Bureau's Economic Census, a snapshot of the American economy that is taken every five years.
And the trends that drove the increases in low-tech businesses have only accelerated, the bureau's economists say, as the nation's economy has rebounded and employment has recovered."
Read more in this NY Times article.
