2023-08-19 10:00:00
With its massive aid to businesses, the most acute period of the Covid had enabled many very fragile businesses to keep their heads above water. This ceasefire is definitely over. The latest figures from the Banque de France show that the number of business failures in 2023 is approaching the pre-pandemic level, in 2019.
In July, there were 42.5% more failures over the last 12 months than last year. Difficulties all the more logical as the GDP more or less stagnated in the first quarter, and that INSEE forecasts growth limited to 0.6% over the year.
“Delinquencies fell sharply from the start of the health crisis, following the temporary modification of the dates for characterizing and declaring the state of insolvency, then public cash support measures to avoid this state of cessation of payments”, attests the Banque de France. Failures had reached historically low levels: 28,000 only in 2021, 38,000 in 2020.
And France is not an isolated case: at the European level, failures also reached a record level in the second quarter of 2023, reports Eurostat on Thursday. They are now higher than in the first quarter of 2015.
Not everyone is affected equally: while micro-enterprise failures remain at lower levels, SMEs are taking the full brunt of the post-pandemic period, the number of their failures having almost doubled in one year. The accommodation and catering sector is by far the most affected (+70% compared to the previous year), as well as that of industry (+53%).
In July, a study published this Tuesday, July 11 by the specialized firm Altares indicated that the number of jobs threatened by these failures had jumped by 80% in the second quarter of 2023, to more than 50,000. Well above the ten-year average of 42,609 jobs at risk per quarter. “At the end of this 2nd quarter of 2023, the pre-Covid repository is shattered,” said Altares director of studies, Thierry Million.
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“If the building is still below the pre-Covid thresholds, other activities are conversely very hard impacted, in particular those in direct contact with consumers” detailed the firm, such as fast food, clothing or the repair and sale of vehicles. Convenience stores and supermarkets are also suffering, with a 33% increase in the number of failures in multi-department commerce, which reaches its worst record of the decade.
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