There were 326,693 Connecticut firms in 2012, down 1.7 percent from 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed this week.
The preliminary data release from the Survey of Business Owners, conducted every five years, covers a time period that started just prior to the 2008 financial crisis and extending three years into the economic recovery.
Despite the more than 5,000-business decline from 2007 to 2012, sales and receipts were up nearly 15 percent in the latter year, from $522.1 billion to $598.9 billion.
Most of the sales and receipts are attributed to firms with paid employees, though there are substantially more firms without paid employees, according to the data, which said firms without paid employees comprised nearly 80 percent of total firms in 2012.
For firms with employees, payroll was up over the five-year period, from $81 billion to $83.2 billion. The firms counted by the survey had 1.47 million employees in 2012, down from 1.53 million in 2007.
