Brussels, 03/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - The economic recovery did not reach small businesses in 2013, according to the study of small businesses' annual performance by the European Commission that was published on Friday 3 October. Small businesses make up 21.6 million companies in the European Union, and 88.8 million jobs.
Small businesses grew by 1.1% in 2013, but this is below the figure for the previous years (1.2% and 4.2%). The number of small businesses and their value-added have beaten the 2008 pre-crisis levels, however, but with the equivalent of fewer jobs (-2.6%).
Construction hit hard. It is small businesses in information and communication (up 9%), commercial services (up 7%), and real estate (up 15%) that have kept the economic indicators up since the crisis. Construction has been particularly hard hit (down 22% since 2008).
North/South divide. Unsurprisingly, countries in central and northern Europe head the league tables when it comes to entrepreneurship, value-added and jobs in small companies, beating the pre-crisis figures in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Malta, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and France. In ten member states, however, mostly in the eurozone or countries that have received financial aid, the level of value-added created by small businesses remains 10% below the 2008 level (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania, Slovenia, Latvia and Hungary).
Slight improvement. The recovery seems to be firmly rooted with a 2.8% increase in value-added expected this year and 3.4% in 2015. An increase of only 0.1% in new jobs is expected this year and 0.7% in 2015 (a total of 740,000 new jobs), but this will not be enough to cover the losses since the crisis. (MD)