Latinos have become the fastest-growing small business owners across the U.S. Over the past 10 years, the number of Latino business owners grew 34%, compared to 1% for all business owners in the United States, according to a recent study from Stanford University.

The growing success of Latino small business owners comes as Latinos are increasingly becoming an economic force in the U.S. The same Stanford study found Latino-owned businesses contributed about $500 billion to the economy in annual sales.

A 2019 report to Congress based on data from 2017 found almost 60 million Latinos in the United States already account for $2.3 trillion in economic activity in total, which on its own would rank as the eighth-largest economy in the world. And Latinos are projected to make up 30% of the U.S. population by 2030, meaning the group's contributions are only likely to grow.

Latino-owned businesses employ more than 3 million people, according to the 2019 State of Latino Entrepreneurship report by the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI), a Stanford University research initiative centered around Latinos in business. All told, Latino-owned businesses account for about 4% of U.S. business revenues and 5.5% of U.S. employment.

Across the U.S., Latinos are represented in all the major industry sectors, owning businesses in manufacturing, education, health services, finance, media, construction and more.

For every 100,000 Latino adults in the United States, on average 500 became entrepreneurs each month in 2018.

And over the last year, Latino-owned businesses reported an average revenue growth of 14%, outpacing the growth of the U.S. economy, the Stanford report showed.

Source: USA Today Network (Hecho en USA, Made in America)