KfW numbers
More people venture into self -employment
The number of start -ups in Germany has increased again. However, the KfW sponsorship bank does not see this as an upswing – for several reasons.
In Germany, more people have taken the step into self -employment. According to figures from the KfW funding bank, the number of business start -ups in 2024 rose by three percent to 585,000 compared to the previous year – especially because people have created a second mainstay in the side acquisition.
As an upswing, KfW economist Georg Metzger does not evaluate the development: “Despite the slight increase in the past year, you have to state: since 2018, the founding activity in Germany has been in the sideways trend.”
For comparison: ten years earlier, the number of business start -ups in Germany was still well over 800,000, in 2004 the KfW even counted almost 1.4 million start -ups in Germany.
For many, independence is only an episode
Last year, 115 adults between the ages of 18 and 64 became self-employed. In 2023, this number was 110. Eight out of ten (82 percent) founder started her company alone, only a quarter (25 percent) hired employees right from the start.
The analysis, which is based on the survey of 50,000 people, is a weighty reason for the recently increasing number, in the more difficult situation on the job market: Almost a third (31 percent) of the founders stated that they would actually prefer to be employed and see independence only as a temporary episode to achieve a higher income, implement a business idea.
dpa
Source: Stern
