Idaho: Nearly Every Employer Is Small
The Census Bureau's 2023 County Business Patterns counted 58,100 employer establishments in Idaho, and 96.1% of them have fewer than 50 employees, among the highest small-establishment shares in the country. Idaho Commerce describes the September 2022 announcement by Micron of the largest single private investment in the state's history, an investment of approximately $15 billion through the end of the decade, expected to create approximately 2,000 direct jobs by the end of the decade. An announcement is a plan, not a finished plant. The number that describes most Idaho businesses is the other one: nearly every employer here is a small firm whose systems were assembled one at a time.
- U.S. Census Bureau: 2023 County Business Patterns: State file (cbp23st) (2023 CBP; retrieved 2026-10-05)
- Idaho Department of Commerce: Micron Announces $15 Billion Investment In Boise (2022 announcement recap; retrieved 2026-10-08)