Rising Business Failures: Highest Since 2018 – Impact on Jobs and Industries

2023-10-18 06:41:00

10,979 liquidation, receivership or safeguard procedures were opened before the commercial courts from July to September: this is both a high since 2018, and the first slowdown since January 2022, according to Altares

“I don’t expect a wave of business failures” (Daniel Baal, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale)

« Since the start of 2022, the number of defaults has jumped by an average of 47% each quarter: such a high rate over such a long period is unprecedented, but remember that in 2021, defaults were also at their lowest in 35 years », observes Thierry Millon, the director of Altares, who produced this study. The analyst also expects for the next quarters “ more moderate increases ».

37,280 jobs are threatened by these failures

The study, however, observes a constantly increasing proportion of failing SMEs and mid-sized companies (ETIs): 8.2% of the total in the third quarter, the highest level since the summer of 2010. These failures increased by 32% over a year. Those of very small companies are much more numerous (92% of the total), but their increase is limited to 22% over one year. In total, 37,280 jobs are threatened by these failures, the highest since the third quarter of 2016: some 21,800 in SMEs and 15,500 in VSEs. Companies less than 3 years old are the most vulnerable (+32% in failures over one year), followed by those aged 5 to 10 years (+31%). Those over 10 years old are average (+22%). On the other hand, young companies 3 to 5 years old “created before Covid and which have been able to resist until then, are holding on” according to the study, with an increase in insolvencies over one year limited to 13% in the third quarter.

Hair salons, real estate agencies and fast food are struggling

Among the sectors in difficulty, hairdressing-beauty institutes (+38%), with as many hairdressing salon defects in the first nine months of 2023 as during the whole of 2015, “itself the worst year for sector”.

« Since Covid, there have been a large number of hairdressing establishments that have been created, but perhaps there are too many “, Christophe Doré, president of the National Union of Hairdressing Companies (Unec), said at the beginning of August, ” it is not by multiplying the exhibitions that we will be able to better share the cake “. France today has more than 100,000 hairdressing establishments, two-thirds of which are salons (the others being mainly home hairdressers), compared to 85,000 five years ago, according to Unec data. Fast food “signs a historic record” of failures (+28%). Those of real estate agencies have almost doubled (+98%, the highest in more than 10 years). Insolvencies are almost stable or decreasing in accommodation (-13%), inter-company trade (+4%) including construction materials (-27%), and agriculture (-5%) including -28% in breeding.

At the beginning of October, the Banque de France reported that business insolvencies over one year had reached their 2019 level in September, before the Covid pandemic. Very small businesses with fewer than 10 employees numbered 2,520 to have gone bankrupt in the last 12 months compared to 1,527 in 2019 (+65%), while those with between 10 and 49 employees numbered 1,180, compared to 651 the year before the crisis (+81.3%).

(With AFP)

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