Pandemic Kills Nearly 63000 Small Businesses In Just 18 Months

A year and a half after the outbreak of the pandemic, the productive fabric has not yet managed to grease the machinery to recover the pre-crisis levels of both activity and size in terms of the number of companies registered in the system. Specifically, the measure is provided by the data recently released by Social Security, which registered at the end of June almost 63,000 companies with less than 50 fewer workers than before the crisis.

Without a doubt, SMEs and the self-employed are the most affected by the pandemic because in the last 18 months they have been forced to face total closures of their businesses, limitations to activity and mobility.

And all this, according to the figures that the experts handle means that the self-employed in the hotel and trade sector -the sectors most affected by these restrictions-, would have lost at least 60% of the income registered in the first half of the summer. same period of 2019. Specifically, this situation is suffered by more than seven out of ten (75%) self-employed workers, according to the figures collected by UPTA, the entity representing the group.

Faced with this situation, within the list of companies that are registered with Social Security, it is observed that once again these small companies have had to close down the most . Of those made up of a single worker, 51,786 fewer were registered as of June this year, while those with 2 to 6 workers were 9,296 fewer than before the outbreak of the pandemic. While those with staff of between 6 and 50 workers are 1,622 companies less.

In fact, only companies with more than 500 workers can consider the crisis resolved, since 54 more are counted in our country than before the outbreak of the pandemic, adding up. 2,415 companies.

That is, if before the start of the pandemic a total of 1,442,615 companies with less than 50 workers were counted in our country, currently the level has been reduced to 1,379,913 companies, that is, almost 5% less.

But furthermore, the measure of the goring suffered by this group of companies is given by the volume it represents on the total of disappearances registered in the last year and a half.

Thus, regardless of the number of workers, in February 2020 there was a total of 1,481,364 registered, while at present the sum amounts to 1,418,215. In other words, there are 63,149 companies destroyed in this period. So if we take into account that those with less than 50 workers are now exactly 62,702 less, it means that this group accounts for 99.2% of all the destruction of productive tissue in a pandemic.

Deadpoint
Thus, the self-employed qualify the economic situation as “deadlock”, since the fifth wave is preventing economic recovery and the billing in hotels and businesses is still 60% lower than in the summer of 2019.

“The restrictions that many autonomous communities are suffering due to Covid-19 are making the worst omens come true and that the self-employed feel how the summer passes without improving the situation of their businesses,” they lament from UPTA in relation to the restrictions imposed in certain areas with high incidence , mainly in coastal towns and tourist activity, due to the spike in infections experienced in recent weeks, especially among the younger population.

From UPTA, 76% point out a decrease in average billing with values ​​close to 60% compared to 2019, 17% indicate that it has lost less than 30% of billing compared to 2019 and only 7% recognize a total recovery of the billing.