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Business in Ireland 2018

Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

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CSO Business Demography data monitors the number of enterprise births (new enterprises created) and deaths (enterprises that ceased trading) in the business economy. Births and deaths due to mergers, takeovers, break-ups, change of activity or the restructuring of a set of enterprises are all excluded from the data.

This chapter presents this information at sectoral level as well as for the total business economy. It is also possible to track new enterprise births in order to gain a better understanding of the types of business that are more likely to survive the early years of their life cycle¹.

¹See Appendix 2 for full definitions of enterprise births and deaths.

	Deaths	Births
2013	18287	13824
2014	15337	16256
2015	15944	18100
2016	14629	19249
2017	16011	22241
2018		14458

In 2018, enterprise births showed an annual decrease of 35.0% to 14,458
The lowest number of enterprise births between 2013 and 2018 occurred in 2013 when 13,824 enterprises were established
The number of new births increased by 4.6% in 2018 when compared to 2013
The total number of enterprises that ceased trading during 2017 was 16,011, an increase of 9.4% from 2016 levels
Enterprise deaths decreased by 12.4% in the period 2013 to 2017

	Deaths	Births
2013	22857	16505
2014	22584	19383
2015	21018	23073
2016	20442	24382
2017	19886	23621
2018		18316

The number of persons engaged in enterprise births fell by 22.5% in 2018 compared to 2017
Persons engaged in enterprise births increased from 16,505 in 2013 to 18,316 in 2018
The total number of persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading during 2017 was 19,886, a decrease of 2.7% from 2016 and 13.0% when compared to 2013

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2013	968	2473	2304	7441	639
2014	1110	3526	2468	8735	418
2015	1186	4226	2573	9572	544
2016	1329	4623	2848	9983	466
2017	1409	5345	2933	11330	1223
2018	865	3364	1945	7417	867

All sectors showed an annual decrease in the number of new enterprise births in 2018
The largest annual decrease in the number of enterprise births took place in the Services sector, which showed a decrease of 3,913 new enterprises on the previous year from 11,330 to 7,417 in 2018
The Industrial sector experienced the highest percentage decrease in new births between 2017 and 2018 (-38.6%) and between 2013 and 2018 it decreased by 10.6%
The Construction sector showed an annual decrease of 37.1% in enterprise births in 2018 and between 2013 and 2018 enterprise births increased by 36.0%
Enterprise births for the Financial and Insurance sector decreased by 29.1% in 2018 and increased by 35.7% in the five year period from 2013 to 2018

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2013	910	2497	3338	9249	510
2014	1276	3663	2850	11157	437
2015	1704	4376	3333	13211	450
2016	1571	5186	3410	13658	557
2017	1348	5441	3285	12988	559
2018	1051	3798	2536	10549	382

The largest number of persons engaged in enterprise births in 2018 was in the Services sector with 10,549 persons
This was followed by the Construction sector with 3,798 persons engaged
The Financial and Insurance sector accounted for just 382 persons engaged in new enterprise births in 2018

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2013	1060	3803	3217	9320	887
2014	898	3019	2662	8257	502
2015	961	3163	2671	8515	635
2016	883	3048	2500	7771	428
2017	948	3506	2622	8422	514

The number of enterprise deaths increased across all sectors from 2016 to 2017
The Services sector had the highest number of deaths in 2017 with 8,422 enterprises ceasing activity, accounting for 52.6% of total deaths
The Construction sector accounted for the second largest proportion (21.9%) of total deaths in 2017 with 3,506 enterprises ceasing
The largest annual percentage increase for enterprise deaths in 2017 was in the Financial and Insurance sector which increased from 428 enterprise deaths in 2016 to 514 enterprise deaths in 2017, an increase of 20.1%

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2013	1227	3544	4548	13111	427
2014	1169	3142	4127	13615	531
2015	1602	3245	4293	11462	415
2016	1086	3267	4195	11422	471
2017	1252	3724	3624	10970	316

There were 19,886 persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2017
The Services sector accounted for the largest proportion (55.2%) of the total number of persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2017 with 10,970 employees
The Construction sector was the second highest with 3,724 persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading in 2017, accounting for 18.7% of the total
The Financial and Insurance sector showed the largest annual percentage decrease (-32.9%) in the number of persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2017, decreasing from 471 persons in 2016 to 316 persons in 2017

	2013 births	2014 births	2015 births	2016 births	2017 births
Year of birth	13824	16257	18100	19249	22241
Survived 1 year	11708	13952	15133	16687	19220
Survived 2 years	10938	12685	14532	15451
Survived 3 years	10141	12220	13633
Survived 4 years	9756	11593
Survived 5 years	9305

All enterprise births were monitored for the years 2013 to 2017 to assess their survival rate and the resulting effect on employment
The one year survival rate which relates to enterprises born in one year and still active in the next year, increased from 84.7% in 2013 to 86.4% in 2017
There were 13,824 new enterprise births in 2013, with 9,305 of these still active in reference year 2018, a 67.3% survival rate

	2013 births	2014 births	2015 births	2016 births	2017 births
Year of birth	16505	19383	23073	24382	23621
Survived 1 year	14428	16837	19674	21094	20499
Survived 2 years	14102	15559	18891	20070
Survived 3 years	14436	15006	17871
Survived 4 years	12063	14909
Survived 5 years	11610

There were 16,505 persons engaged in enterprise births in 2013, of which 70.3% or 11,610 persons were still engaged in 2018
The one year survival rate for persons engaged in enterprise births from 2013 to 2017 decreased from 87.4% to 86.8%
The two year survival rate for persons engaged decreased slightly from 85.4% for enterprises birthed in 2013 to 82.3% for enterprises birthed in 2016
The largest number of persons engaged by year of birth was in 2016 with 24,382

2.1 Number of enterprise births and associated persons engaged by sector, 2013 to 2018

2.2 Number of enterprise deaths and associated persons engaged by sector, 2013 to 2017

2.3 Number of enterprise survivals and associated persons engaged by sector, 2013 to 2017

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Table 2.1 Number of enterprise births and associated persons engaged by sector, 2013 to 2018
Sector	Enterprise births							Persons engaged in birthed enterprises
	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	Total	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	Total
Industry	968	1,110	1,186	1,329	1,409	865	6,867	910	1,276	1,704	1,571	1,348	1,051	7,860
Construction	2,473	3,526	4,226	4,623	5,345	3,364	23,557	2,497	3,663	4,376	5,186	5,441	3,798	24,961
Distribution	2,304	2,468	2,573	2,848	2,933	1,945	15,071	3,338	2,850	3,333	3,410	3,285	2,536	18,752
Services	7,441	8,735	9,572	9,983	11,330	7,417	54,478	9,249	11,157	13,211	13,658	12,988	10,549	70,812
Financial and Insurance	639	418	544	466	1,223	867	4,157	510	437	450	557	559	382	2,895
Total Business Economy¹	13,824	16,256	18,100	19,249	22,241	14,458	104,128	16,505	19,383	23,073	24,382	23,621	18,316	125,280
Source: CSO Business Demography
¹Totals may differ due to rounding.

Table 2.2 Number of enterprise deaths and associated persons engaged by sector, 2013 to 2017
Sector	Enterprise deaths						Persons engaged in enterprise deaths
	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017¹	Total	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017¹	Total
Industry	1,060	898	961	883	948	4,750	1,227	1,169	1,602	1,086	1,252	6,336
Construction	3,803	3,019	3,163	3,048	3,506	16,539	3,544	3,142	3,245	3,267	3,724	16,922
Distribution	3,217	2,662	2,671	2,500	2,622	13,672	4,548	4,127	4,293	4,195	3,624	20,787
Services	9,320	8,257	8,515	7,771	8,422	42,285	13,111	13,615	11,462	11,422	10,970	60,580
Financial and Insurance	887	502	635	428	514	2,966	427	531	415	471	316	2,160
Total Business Economy²	18,287	15,337	15,944	14,629	16,011	80,208	22,857	22,584	21,018	20,442	19,886	106,787
Source: CSO Business Demography
¹Death figures for 2017 estimated. Enterprises need 2 years of inactivity before being declared a final death.
²Totals may differ due to rounding.

Table 2.3 Number of enterprise survivals and associated persons engaged, 2013 to 2017
	Enterprise survivals							Persons engaged in enterprise survivals
		Survived							Survived
Year	Enterprise Births	1 years	2 years	3 years	4 years	5 years	Year	Enterprise Births	1 years	2 years	3 years	4 years	5 years
2013	13,824	11,708	10,938	10,141	9,756	9,305	2013	16,505	14,428	14,102	14,436	12,063	11,610
2014	16,257	13,952	12,685	12,220	11,593		2014	19,383	16,837	15,559	15,006	14,909
2015	18,100	15,133	14,532	13,633			2015	23,073	19,674	18,891	17,871
2016	19,249	16,687	15,451				2016	24,382	21,094	20,070
2017	22,241	19,220					2017	23,621	20,499
2018	14,458						2018	18,316
Source: CSO Business Demography

Business in Ireland 2018

Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

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