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Draft 1.1— For Discussion Only, Not for Citation to- business marketplace, where local input- substitution is underwritten through finders fees paid by local contract recipients. The paper summarizes 19 promising meta - businesses that the County could explore. The paper concludes by signposting the next pieces of work in this contract. Specifically, Part II of this paper, out before the end of the year, will contain an assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) that should guide the particulars of a local - living- economy approach to economic development. In recent months, the author spoke with several dozen key people in the county to make the SWOT analysis, including policymakers, business people, and grassroots leaders. Their views will be summarized and analyzed. The Existing Cabarrus Economy To understand what kinds of new jobs are possible in Cabarrus, it's helpful to begin by reviewing what jobs exist today. Two government databases are especially useful for this analysis. Employer data can be found at "County Business Patterns," available from the U.S. Census Bureau ( http: / /www.census.�zov /econ /cbp /index.html ). Self- employment data also can be found with the U.S. Census Bureau, in its "Nonemployer Statistics" ( http://www. census. gov /econ /nonemployer /index.html Both are organized around the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), which contains about 1,100 categories (with two -digit categories being the broadest categories, like manufacturing, and six -digit categories being the most narrow). Unfortunately, these data lag 2 -3 years behind, so the best picture one can paint is not entirely up -to -date. According to the 2009 edition of County Business Patterns, Cabarrus County has 58,666 employees earning $1.9 billion per year. Chart 2 summarizes these data. Chart 3 breaks these data down by the size of each establishment. It shows that all but six of the 3,958 establishments in Cabarrus County have fewer than 500 employees and therefore qualify as small businesses. It's important to note, however, that small establishments may be branch factories of global -scale manufacturers or linked stores of larger chains, so not all these businesses are locally owned. We will estimate the percentage of employees in locally owned business shortly. 11 Attachment number 1 1 -4 Page 306