This means that about as many bankruptcies were recorded as in the same period of 2019, i.e. before the corona crisis. With 2,333 insolvencies in the entire first half of the year, this also applies to this period, reported Statistics Austria on Tuesday. Registrations of new businesses have declined.
“After the trend reversal at the end of 2021, insolvencies have now leveled off again at the pre-corona crisis level,” Tobias Thomas, the head of the authority, was quoted as saying in a broadcast. Numerous aid measures and a suspension of application requirements had massively reduced the number of insolvencies during the period of lockdowns and further corona restrictions. Analyzes by insolvency law experts show that there is no excessive catch-up effect, and the backlog is slowly and steadily being reduced. It is generally expected to level off at the level of 2018 and 2019, when the level of insolvencies was quite low. Of course, the situation is volatile and difficult to predict because of the many crises – Ukraine war, inflation, supply chain problems.
The most insolvencies in the second quarter were in financial services/other services (305), trade (229), construction (228) and accommodation and gastronomy (168). The areas of information and communication (52) and manufacturing (74) show comparatively few cases of insolvency. For the second quarter of 2021, there was a similar distribution of insolvencies across individual economic sectors.
Statistics Austria counted 14,510 registrations of new legal entities of companies in the second quarter. That was 15 percent less than in the same quarter of 2021. Compared to the comparative quarter before the pandemic began, i.e. the second quarter of 2019, registrations fell by 10 percent.
There were a total of 30,892 registrations in the first half of the year. That was a drop of 14 percent compared to the first half of 2019 with 35,726 registrations.
Source: Nachrichten
