Arizona: A Small-Establishment Economy
Arizona runs on small establishments. The Census Bureau's 2023 County Business Patterns counted 162,845 employer establishments across the state, and 94.2% of them have fewer than 50 employees. The Arizona Commerce Authority describes a state with more than 1,250 small- and large-scale companies within the aerospace and defense supply chain, with manufacturing names like Intel, Microchip, and Honeywell running plants here, and with one of the fastest growing medtech and bioscience bases in the country. Those are agency characterizations and state counts, not a description of any one business, but the scene they set is real: a fast-growing economy of mostly small firms whose tools were assembled one at a time.
- U.S. Census Bureau: 2023 County Business Patterns: State file (cbp23st) (2023 CBP; retrieved 2026-10-05)
- Arizona Commerce Authority: Industries in Arizona: key sector opportunities (current page; retrieved 2026-10-08)