Wed. Dec 25th, 2024

In the second quarter of 2024, the number of bankruptcy declarations of EU businesses increased by 3.1% compared with the first quarter of 2024.

At the same time, business registrations were down by 2.1% compared with the first quarter of 2024.

This information comes from data on business registrations and bankruptcies published by Eurostat today. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

Registrations of businesses and declarations of bankruptcies in the EU, Q1 2018-Q2 2024 (seasonally adjusted data; 2021=100). Line chart.See link to full dataset below.

Source dataset: sts_rb_q

Business registrations decrease in all sectors

Data show that the number of business registrations went down in all sectors of the economy. When compared with the previous quarter, the highest decreases in the second quarter of 2024 were in trade (-4.7%), industry (-3.6%) and education and social activities (-3.4%). The smallest decrease was registered in financial activities (-0.7%).

Different trends across the sectors of the economy for bankruptcies

While the overall number of bankruptcy declarations increased, the individual sectors of the economy behaved differently. Compared with the previous quarter, in the second quarter of 2024, bankruptcies decreased in 4 sectors: information and communication (-4.8%), transport (-1.6%), accommodation and food services (-1.1%) and education and social activities (-1.0%). On the other hand, bankruptcy declarations increased in 4 other sectors: construction (+3.8%), financial activities (+2.6%), trade (+2.4%) and industry (+1.6%).

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