Statistics on business demography include data on the population of active enterprises, on births of enterprises, their survival, on deaths of enterprises and on the corresponding employment data. Business demography statistics play a key role by forming a basis for political decisions and analyses. Another aspect of particular interest is the relevance of new enterprises in stimulating the economy by creating new jobs. Derived indicators such as birth rates, death rates and (two-year) survival rates also form part of the EU structural indicators, which are used to monitor the progress made in the Lisbon process aimed at boosting growth and employment.
Since 2009, the data collection on business demography is mandatory on European level. The legal basis is the Annex IX of the revised EU regulation on structural business statistics and on national level the business demography regulation. According to this legal basis, in 2014, data have to be compiled for reference year 2012. The data are shown by economic activities (NACE Rev.2) and legal form, by economic activities and employee size class, by economic activities and provinces as well as NUTS3 and for sole proprietorships by economic activities and gender.
In 2012,
In general, the 2012 birth rate was – as expected – highest (6.0%) in the services sector (sections G-S, NACE Rev.2, excluding 64.2 "Management activities of holding companies"). The birth rate was below average (5.5%) in industry and construction (sections B-F). At NACE Rev.2 section level, high birth rates were recorded in the economic branches of "Administrative and support service activities" (9.0%), “Accommodation and food service activities” (7.8%) as well as in “Transportation and storage” (7.4). The lowest birth rates were recorded in “Mining and quarrying” (1.8%) and in "Human Health and Social work activities" (2.5%).
With respect to the survival of newly born enterprises, the survival rates of a cohort of newly born enterprises are of course declining from one year to another: One year after its birth, at least one enterprise out of ten newly born in 2004 was no longer active on the market; around 90% of those enterprises survived into 2005. The two-year survival rate (from 2004 to 2006) was 81.4%, after three years 74.8% were still active and after four years around two thirds (69.4%) survived. The five-year-survival rate (from 2004 to 2009) amounted to 64.5% and after six years 59.9% were still active and after seven years 55.8% were active. Eight years after the births 51.8% were still active. The highest eight-year-survival rates were registered in the economic branches of "Human Health and Social work activities" (71.7%), "Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply" (64.6%) and "Manufacturing" (61.4%).
A total of
On average, 2.4 jobs (employed persons per enterprise) were created by newly born enterprises in 2012, while 2.4 jobs were lost per enterprise death. The highest total of employed persons
in new enterprises was found in the "Accommodation and food service
activities"
Observing the trends of the reporting period (2004
to 2012) it is shown that the number of newly born enterprises declined by 11.8%. After some fluctuations
(highest total: 2005;
In this eight-year observation period the number of
births was growing in the following economic branches: “Accommodation
and food service activities”
In 2010, the number of deaths of enterprises started
to get higher than the number of births. Over the eight-year time period,
the number of enterprise deaths was most on the increase in the economic
sectors “Financial and insurance activities”
Further information on the methodology of the data collection.