More than 88,000 businesses filed paperwork to set up shop in Ohio last year — the highest number in the state’s 209-year history.
The total of 88,068 new entities in 2012 marked the third year in a row in which the number was up, according to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. The figures include for-profit and not-for profit businesses.
Filing as a business in Ohio with the Secretary of State’s Office does not necessarily mean a business will begin operations.
Husted said the growth in the number of filings is an indication of increased jobs prospects for Ohioans.
Ned Hill, a Northeast Ohio economist and a dean at Cleveland State University, said business filings tend to go up in the early stages of an economic recovery.
Many large companies still aren’t hiring, Hill said, “but people are more optimistic because they see a recovery and they tend to strike out on their own.”
Hill, dean of Cleveland State’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, said the uptick is a sign that “people are not relying on big business and big labor to give them a big income — that model is broken.”
Last year’s filings were up 16.5 percent from 2009, when there were 75,584 new filings, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
For December, the number of new business filings totaled 6,975. That compares with 6,463 in December 2011.
More than 2.1 million new businesses have filed since Ohio became a state in 1803, according to the secretary’s office.
The state cannot provide a county-by-county breakdown of where the entities are that filed to do business, said Matt McClellan, a spokesman for Husted.
This is because many types of new businesses are not required to provide a business address.
Agents and registrants for all business types must submit an address. But the business can have a different address, McClellan said. For example, a lawyer registering a business might provide an office address.
The filing fee is $125 for most types of businesses, including for-profit corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.