Firms with fewer than 50 employees sustain up to seven in ten private sector jobs in parts of Scotland, according to figures compiled by the Federation of Small Businesses.
However, that jumps to at least half in the Orkney Islands, Western Isles, Shetland Islands, Scottish Borders and Argyll and Bute, where Scottish small business employment is proportionately highest, the FSB said.
The business membership group said official statistics show 79,880 people are employed by these types of firms in Glasgow, more than in any other council area.
Read more: More women run own business in Edinburgh than anywhere else in Scotland
Edinburgh follows closely behind with 72,380 people provided work by smaller operators.
It comes ahead of Small Business Saturday this weekend, now in its sixth year in the UK.
In 2017 an estimated £748 million was spent with small businesses on the first Saturday of December.
Andrew McRae, FSB’s Scotland policy chair, above, said: "These figures show that across the length and breadth of Scotland smaller firms are vital to local jobs and the health of local communities.
"In our cities, hundreds of thousands of Scots work for small businesses and in rural Scotland they account for every second job."
He added: "This weekend we’re urging Scots to check out the brilliant shops, cafés, pubs, restaurants and all the other independent operators that can be found in our local communities."
Read more: £75m Brexit resilience fund call from business leaders
Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said: “More than forty thousand people in Fife are employed by smaller businesses and my constituents regularly tell me how important a healthy local high street is to their community.
"That’s why I’m pleased to support Small Business Saturday – an important day that reminds us of the importance of shopping locally.
"This weekend, I will be visiting small businesses in my local high street in Fife.
"My local town, Burntisland, has a number of great local shops; an award winning butchers, a local and popular fishmongers; and an ice-cream parlour that is a clear family favourite."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here