--- url: 'https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-running-to-stand-still/' title: 'American Firms Aged One to 45 Created 10.8 Million Jobs in 2023. Together, They Lost Slightly More.' author: name: Samantha Lankford url: 'https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/author/sam/' date: '2026-10-04T10:30:00-04:00' modified: '2026-10-04T10:30:00-04:00' type: post summary: 'Firms in their first year supplied 71.0% of America''s net new jobs in 2023. Every employer firm aged one to 45, combined, netted a loss of 11,230.' categories: - Blog Post image: 'https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/founder-running-to-stand-still-hero.webp' published: true --- # American Firms Aged One to 45 Created 10.8 Million Jobs in 2023. Together, They Lost Slightly More. ![The Lonely Entrepreneur](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/TLE_Logo_mobile-490W-26-26.png)Founder Data Report ![American Firms Aged One to 45 Created 10.8 Million Jobs in 2023. Together, They Lost Slightly More.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/founder-running-to-stand-still-hero.webp) Founder Data Report # American Firms Aged One to 45 Created 10.8 Million Jobs in 2023. Together, They Lost Slightly More. By Michael Dermer • Updated October 4, 2026 Join us Fridays at 12 PM ET to ask TLE CEO Michael Dermer your questions live. [Join the CEO Call →](https://shorturl.at/364XX) The Census Bureau tracks every job created and every job lost at every employer firm in the country, by how old the firm is. Once a business is past its first year, it spends the rest of its working life creating jobs at almost exactly the rate it loses them. That is not stagnation. It is what staying in the game costs. Quick Answer In the year to March 2023, American employer firms added **3,439,339** jobs, net. Firms in their first year accounted for 2,440,753 of them — **71.0%**. Firms that had been in business since before 1978 accounted for 1,018,667. Every firm in between, aged one to 45, created 10,849,135 jobs and lost 10,860,365, for a combined net of **-11,230**. Past the first year, staying in business means creating jobs about as fast as you lose them. What the numbers say - Firms in their first year added 2,440,753 net jobs in 2023, 71.0% of the national total. In this accounting a first-year firm can only add jobs, because it had none the March before — so the share says as much about the bookkeeping as about the firms. - Firms aged one to 45 hold 60.2% of all employer-firm jobs. Together they created 10,849,135 jobs and lost 10,860,365. - In every age band from one to 45 years, the job-creation rate and the job-loss rate sit within one point of each other. At one to five years it is 20.0 created and 19.7 lost per hundred jobs. - Over the seventeen years from 2007 to 2023, firms aged one to 45 netted fewer jobs than they started with in 13 of them. - About 46% of the jobs lost at firms aged one to five came from firms closing altogether. At 26 to 45 years it is about 29%. ## Past year one, the work is holding position Most owners think of growth as the scoreboard. The Census Bureau’s own count says that once a firm is past its first year, the scoreboard mostly reads zero. In 2023 the firms aged one to five created 20.0 jobs for every hundred they held and lost 19.7. At six to ten years the figures were 14.7 and 15.3. At 26 to 45 they were 10.8 and 10.5. The pace slows as a firm ages — the youngest band turns over its jobs nearly twice as fast as the 26-to-45 band — but at every age the two numbers travel together. Three of the six bands between one and 45 years lost more jobs than they created that year. A young firm that holds its headcount is not standing still. It is replacing roughly one job in five, every year, just to stay where it is. The Data Jobs created and jobs lost per 100 jobs, by firm age, 2023 Firms aged 1-5 years Jobs created, per 10020.0 Jobs lost, per 10019.7 Firms aged 6-10 years Jobs created, per 10014.7 Jobs lost, per 10015.3 Firms aged 11-15 years Jobs created, per 10012.7 Jobs lost, per 10013.5 Firms aged 16-20 years Jobs created, per 10012.5 Jobs lost, per 10012.4 Firms aged 21-25 years Jobs created, per 10011.3 Jobs lost, per 10011.8 Firms aged 26-45 years Jobs created, per 10010.8 Jobs lost, per 10010.5 Open since before 1978 Jobs created, per 10010.0 Jobs lost, per 1008.0 Each bar is the Census Bureau’s published rate: jobs created, or lost, during the year to March 2023 per hundred jobs at firms of that age, averaged over the start and end of the year. Both bars in a row are drawn on the same 0 to 25 scale. Slate is jobs created and orange is jobs lost; the colours name the flow, not whether a number is good. Firms in their first year are not shown, because every job at a first-year firm counts as created. U.S. Census Bureau, Business Dynamics Statistics, firm-age tables (BDSFAGE), 1978-2023 release, downloaded from www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds/data/ on September 18, 2026 and checked unchanged against the live file on October 1, 2026. Employer firms only; figures run March to March. A firm’s age is set from its oldest establishment. Columns JOB_CREATION_RATE and JOB_DESTRUCTION_RATE, all sectors, firm-age bands. > 10,849,135 jobs created. 10,860,365 jobs lost. Net: -11,230. ## Where 2023’s net new jobs came from Add up the year and the net gain of 3,439,339 jobs comes from the two ends of the age range. Firms in their first year account for 2,440,753. Firms open since before 1978 — 5.4% of employer businesses, covered in our earlier piece on the oldest firms — account for 1,018,667. Everything in the middle, which is 60.2% of the jobs, nets -11,230. Be careful with the first of those figures: a firm in its first year has no jobs to lose, so its contribution to net and to gross creation is the same number by construction. The finding that matters is the middle one, because those firms could have gone either way, and as a group they came out almost exactly even. The Data Net jobs added in the year to March 2023, by firm age Firms in their first year+2,440,753Every firm aged 1 to 45,combined-11,230Firms open since before 1978+1,018,667- Bars run right for a net gain and left for a net loss on a shared axis of 0 to 2.5 million jobs. The middle bar is -11,230 — too small to draw at this scale — and is shown at the chart’s minimum width, so read its printed number rather than its length. The colours name the age group, not whether the result is good. The three groups sum to 3,448,190, within 0.3% of the published national total of 3,439,339; the Bureau’s age bands over-sum the job flows slightly. U.S. Census Bureau, Business Dynamics Statistics, firm-age tables (BDSFAGE), 1978-2023 release, downloaded from www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds/data/ on September 18, 2026 and checked unchanged against the live file on October 1, 2026. Employer firms only; figures run March to March. A firm’s age is set from its oldest establishment. Column NET_JOB_CREATION, all sectors; firms aged 1 to 45 are the six bands from 1-5 to 26+ years. ## Not a one-year accident 2023 is not unusual. From 2007 to 2023, firms aged one to 45 netted a loss in 13 of the seventeen years. The four exceptions are 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2022, the last a rebound year after the pandemic. Added across the whole run the group lost 16.1 million jobs net, while first-year firms added between 2.09 million and 2.69 million every year without exception. The swings in the middle are where recessions show up — a net loss of 5.69 million in 2009, a net loss of 5.02 million in 2021 — and no gain in the run comes close to the worst of the losses. The Data Net jobs added by every firm aged one to 45, combined, 2007 to 2023 -1.7M-0.7M+0.3M-0.2M-6M-4M-2M0+2M+4M200720092011201320152017201920212023 Each point is one year to March. The group is every employer firm at least a year old that started in 1978 or later, so the definition is the same in every year shown. The vertical axis runs from minus six million to plus four million jobs and crosses zero; values are labelled every fourth year from 2007 to 2019. The 2023 value, -11,230, rounds to zero at this scale and is given here rather than on the chart. U.S. Census Bureau, Business Dynamics Statistics, firm-age tables (BDSFAGE), 1978-2023 release, downloaded from www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds/data/ on September 18, 2026 and checked unchanged against the live file on October 1, 2026. Employer firms only; figures run March to March. A firm’s age is set from its oldest establishment. Column NET_JOB_CREATION, years 2007-2023. ## What this means for the owner past year one If the business has been open a few years and the headcount has not moved, you are not behind. You are where the economy’s own arithmetic puts firms past their first year, taken as a group. What the data does not show is ease. At one to five years about 46% of the jobs lost came from firms that closed outright; at 26 to 45 years it is about 29%. Holding position is the outcome, and closing is what holding position is measured against. The practical reading is about resilience, not growth: as a group, firms aged one to five lose about a fifth of their jobs every year and rebuild about as many. Two limits. These are firm-level national totals and say nothing about any one business. And the age bands are firm age, set from a firm’s oldest establishment, so a new location opened by an old firm counts as old. The Data Where the numbers land 71.0% of 2023’s net new jobs came from firms in their first year -11,230 net jobs from every firm aged one to 45, combined 13 of 17 years from 2007 to 2023 in which that group netted a loss 20.0 / 19.7 jobs created and lost per 100 at firms aged one to five U.S. Census Bureau, Business Dynamics Statistics, firm-age tables (BDSFAGE), 1978-2023 release, downloaded from www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/bds/data/ on September 18, 2026 and checked unchanged against the live file on October 1, 2026. Employer firms only; figures run March to March. A firm’s age is set from its oldest establishment. ## Frequently Asked Questions Do established businesses create most new jobs? They create a large share of the gross jobs, but they lose almost as many. In the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics, firms aged one to 45 created 10,849,135 jobs in the year to March 2023 and lost 10,860,365, for a net of -11,230. The net gain came from firms in their first year and from firms open since before 1978. Doesn't that contradict the finding that four in five new jobs come from existing businesses? No. That figure counts gross job gains — every job added at a business that expanded — and comes from a different Bureau of Labor Statistics series measured quarterly at the level of individual workplaces. This article counts net change by firm age over a full year. Existing firms do add most of the jobs; they also shed nearly as many, and net is what is left. Why do first-year firms account for so much of net job creation? Partly because of how the count works. A firm in its first year had no employees the March before, so every job it has counts as created and none can count as lost. In 2023 that came to 2,440,753 jobs. First-year firms added between 2.09 million and 2.69 million net jobs in every year from 2007 to 2023. How fast do young firms turn over jobs compared with old ones? Nearly twice as fast. Firms aged one to five created 20.0 jobs and lost 19.7 per hundred in 2023. Firms aged 26 to 45 created 10.8 and lost 10.5. Firms open since before 1978 had the lowest rates of all, and the widest gap in favour of creation. Is this true in every industry? This article uses the national totals across all sectors. The Bureau publishes the same tables by sector, and the pattern there should be checked sector by sector before it is applied to any one trade. Keep reading [Four Out of Five Jobs Added Last Quarter Came From a Business That Already Existed.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-where-the-jobs-come-from/) - [Surviving Twenty-Six Years Cuts Your Odds of Closing by 61%. In Health Care It Cuts Them by 35%.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-what-surviving-buys-you/) - [5.4% of American Employer Businesses Have Been Open Since Before 1978. They Hold 38.1% of the Jobs.](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/founder-the-oldest-five-percent/) Part of the entrepreneurial struggle: [Resilience](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/entrepreneur-struggle/resilience/) ![The Lonely Entrepreneur](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/TLE_Logo_mobile-490W-26-26.png) Published by **The Lonely Entrepreneur** — the community and coaching platform for entrepreneurs who are building alone. [lonelyentrepreneur.com](https://lonelyentrepreneur.com/) This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for professional financial or legal advice.