The corona pandemic is entering its third year, and orders from many small businesses are below the pre-crisis level. But there is also good news.
According to a survey, many micro-entrepreneurs and the self-employed without employees are suffering from a poor order situation in the ongoing corona pandemic.
While the order books of larger industrial companies are now often well filled, in January 48 percent of self-employed and 47 percent of micro-enterprises with a maximum of five employees said that they had fewer orders than in the pre-crisis year of 2019, as reported by the credit agency Schufa. Half of the solo self-employed and 42 percent of the small companies expect lower sales than in 2019.
No talk of normalization
“Despite numerous easings, we are still a long way from normalization. For a large proportion of small businesses, it’s about the substance,” explained Schufa board member Ole Schröder. Despite the difficult economic situation, companies serviced their loans reliably. According to its own information, in January 2022, Schufa saved at least one negative attribute for only 9.3 percent of tradespeople, freelancers or registered merchants in Germany. This value is consistently below the two previous years, Schröder reported.
According to the survey, around half of the solo self-employed (48 percent) and micro-enterprises (52 percent) are worried about the future. They fear, among other things, that the general price increases will have a negative impact on their company. Above all, high energy prices have been fueling inflation in Germany for some time.
Despite the difficult environment, around two-thirds of the solo self-employed and three-quarters of the micro-enterprises assess the future of their company as “still secure”. In January, Nordlight Research surveyed 505 self-employed people and 300 micro-enterprises on behalf of Schufa.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
