Small Business Saturday is a grassroots, not-for-profit campaign designed to highlight the importance of small businesses in the community as well as providing them an economic boost on the day itself - which this year fell on Saturday, 1st December.
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy: 16.3 million people are employed in the 5.6 million small and medium businesses in the UK creating a combined turnover of £2 trillion (52% of all private sector turnover).
To mark small business Saturday, I visited Scot Bennett Engineering - a small family-owned manufacturing company founded in 1974 - which specialises in building and supplying precision engineering parts. The UK has always been a world-leader in engineering and high-tech manufacturing, with the manufacturing sector making up 44% of all UK exports, and it was a pleasure to visit this company for the first time in several years, and hear about the investment they have been making in their machines.
This year, Small Business Saturday proved to be a tremendous success with an estimated £812 million spent with small businesses across the UK – an 8% increase on last year. The twitter hashtags were in the UK’s top five trends throughout the day and more than 250 small business organisations supported the nationwide imitative along with many politicians, including the Prime Minister. I am always happy to support small businesses in our town who provide so much to our community.