How Many Businesses Have Folded In This Crisis?

January 12, 2009 by Curt Siters

There has been a lot of news in the past six months about businesses and the trouble they are in. Specifically ithas been the big corporations such as AIG, GM, Ford Lehman Brothers - and others - that have received the attention.

This morning my girlfriend was up before me. She told me that she heard on the news that 700,000 trucking companies have gone out of business. I don't know if she misheard or it was misstated but that seems like a lot. I did a quick search online to see what I could find out and didn't find anything.

This got me wondering. So, if that many trucking companies have gone out of business, how many are there? Right now I am feeling a bit lazy, so if anyone knows, please clue me in. Seven hundred thousand represents one trucking firm for every 400 citizens in the U.S. The majority of firms are small independents, so I am figuring that the average number of companies has two trucks. This would mean that one truck would serve about 200 people or roughly 50 families.

Since each truck requires a driver it means that 1.4 million truckers are without work. This doesn't include any administrative personnell or management staff at those companies.

So here is a challenge: if you or someone you know has experienced a business closure (I don't mean a portion, sorry, such as one or two stores in a big chain) please post a comment.

Let me know the following: the company, what sector it was in such as retail or transportation or constuction, how many employees are affected (including management and staff and be as accurate as possible), how long you had worked for the company. After that please feel free to inlcude any comments.

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Curt Siters is an Independent Associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. and is working to help motivate people to take an active interest in what is happening in our legal system and learn ways that they can protect themselves when it comes to the U.S. legal system. He also works to motivate people to maintain and improve their health through the use of essential oils and essential oil based products from Young Living Essential Oils on YourWebReference and at TheVeryEssence. He also does web work such as website design, website maintenance and SEO for websites.

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Curt Siters is an Independent Associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. He is also aYoung Living Essential Oils Independent distributor and publishes articles on YourWebReference and at TheVeryEssence. He also does web work such as website design, website maintenance and SEO for websites.

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