Americans filed about 1.72 million business applications in the 12 months to June that the U.S. Census Bureau identifies as most likely to become employer businesses, roughly 31% above the 2019 level and still edging higher.
The figure comes from an analysis of Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics by Mandoe Media, a digital signage supplier that works with restaurants, retailers and gyms. It points to a pipeline of genuine new premises that has stayed full well after the pandemic-era spike, and one that matters to anyone selling into retail and hospitality.
The headline number is what the Census Bureau calls high-propensity applications, the filings its model treats as the closest read on businesses likely to hire and open premises. That measure is anchored in consumer-facing sectors: accommodation and food services and retail are among the industries that qualify an application as high-propensity. In the latest single month of industry detail, retail trade drew about 77,200 applications and accommodation and food services about 26,800, two of the larger categories.
There is a second story underneath the first. Applications of every kind ran at about 6.02 million over the same 12 months, up almost 15% year over year and about 72% above 2019. But the share of that total classed as high-propensity has fallen, from 37.6% in 2019 to 28.6% now. The raw count has climbed faster than the part of it likely to become a staffed storefront, which is why the 1.72 million figure carries more signal for suppliers than the headline six million does.
“The number that matters to anyone selling to retailers is the share of applications likely to actually open premises and hire, and that has held up even as the raw filing count has run ahead of it,” said Paul Madden at Mandoe Media. “A storefront that opens this year is competing for attention from its first day, and how it presents prices and offers at the door is part of that.”
Growth in the likely-employer pipeline has not stalled. High-propensity applications rose 2.3% on the prior 12 months, and the run rate now averages roughly 143,700 likely-employer filings a month.
Mandoe Media compiled the finding from public Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics retrieved through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. No private data was used. The Census Bureau publishes industry detail at national level and geographic detail as a total across all industries, so a clean state-by-sector ranking of restaurants or shops is not available from the series.
The data covers the high-propensity applications series and the total business applications series, with sector and regional detail in the Census Bureau’s current Business Formation Statistics release.
