ROTTERDAM, 10 Augustus 2022 - Last month, 133 companies went bankrupt in the Netherlands. This is what business data specialist Altares Dun & Bradstreet says after analysing the latest figures. These 133 bankruptcies are slightly more than one year earlier. In July 2021, 124 companies went 'out of business'.
Nevertheless, many companies are surviving, in the run-up to the end of the corona run. Before corona, on average, many more companies went bankrupt: as many as 355 in July 2019. Last month's 133 fit perfectly into a slightly downward trend in 2022. In June, 146 companies still went bankrupt.
Construction and trade
Most bankruptcies occurred in construction (27) and trade (21). These sectors have by far the most enterprises, so this is no surprise. It has been a long time since so few companies went bankrupt in the trade sector. The last time the number fell below 20 was in October 2021 (19).
Twenty specialist business service providers went bankrupt. The number of bankruptcies in that sector has been slightly higher than in the past three months. Since May, 61 such companies went bankrupt, about the same number as in the previous six months.
Joris Peeters, Chief Data Scientist at Altares Dun & Bradstreet: "We see that the number of bankruptcies remains stubbornly low, even after the removal of government support. Consumer spending is high and unemployment historically low. This ensures that people and companies continue to spend, despite declining consumer confidence. Companies may also be able to pass on some or all of their increased costs to customers. Partly because of this, companies are 'just' staying in business."
