The pandemic has caused enough of an upheaval in the job market that new business starts have reached the highest rates in at least the past few decades.
In Massachusetts, would-be entrepreneurs most often see themselves as offering one thing best in particular: their expertise.
Consulting was the top search when Massachusetts residents looked up potential business startups, according to a report issued Friday by SurePayroll, part of the payroll services company Paychex.
Massachusetts was the only state in which consulting came out on top. In many cases, people have looked into starting boutiques or clothing brands.
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In Rhode Island, fitness centers have been eyed most. The Ocean State shares that in common with two rural states: West Virginia and Wyoming.
In major cities, people tended to search most often for how to start their own business on the craft-maker website Etsy, SurePayroll said. That was the case for Boston, where Etsy was most common, followed by boutiques, stores and bakeries, businesses or franchises in general, or law firms.
SurePayroll’s report comes as new business incorporations continue far outpacing their numbers from before the pandemic.
In Massachusetts, new-business starts peaked in January 2021 at more than 6,700, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Monthly numbers have remained largely above 6,000 new starts in the past year and a half. Before the pandemic, they were typically around half that level.
The same trend holds true nationally. Business starts across the country have regularly surpassed 400,000 a month, according to the Census, roughly doubling pre-pandemic levels.
