Business in Ireland 2020

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 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.

Enterprise Births and Deaths

• In 2020, there were an estimated 18,743 enterprise births
• The total number of enterprises that ceased trading during 2019 was 17,405, marginally more than in 2018
• In the five years between 2015 and 2020, there were a total of 106,904 enterprise births
• Between 2015 and 2019 almost 81,900 enterprise deaths took place

Persons Engaged in Enterprise Births and Deaths

• The number of persons engaged in new enterprise births fell by 1.8% in 2020 compared with 2019
• The number of persons engaged in enterprise births increased from 23,073 in 2015 to 28,151 in 2020
• The total number of persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading during 2019 was 27,738, an increase of 27.3% from 2018 and 32.0% higher than the number of persons engaged in enterprises that ceased in 2015

Number of New Births by Sector

• The largest annual increase in the number of enterprise births took place in the Construction sector, which showed an increase of 2,193 new enterprises on the previous 
• The number of enterprise births in the Financial & Insurance sector increased by 42.3% in the year between 2019 and 2020
• Industrial enterprise births showed an annual increase of 39.7% in 2020
• Between 2019 and 2020 new births in the Distribution sector increased by 23.2%
• Enterprise births for the Services sector increased by 19.2% in 2020 and decreased by 4.9% in the five-year period from 2015 to 2020

Persons Engaged in New Births by Sector

• The largest number of persons engaged in enterprise births in 2020 was in the Services sector with 16,721 persons engaged
• This was followed by the Construction sector with 6,211 persons engaged
• The Financial & Insurance sector accounted for the lowest number of persons engaged (615) in new enterprise births in 2020

Enterprise Deaths by Sector

• The Services sector had the highest number of enterprise closures in 2019 with 9,416 enterprises ceasing activity, accounting for 54.1% of all deaths
• In 2019 the Construction sector accounted for the second largest proportion (22.2%) of total deaths in 2019 with 3,861 enterprises ceasing
• The largest annual percentage decrease in enterprise deaths in 2019 was in the Distribution sector which decreased from 2,780 in 2018 to 2,527 in 2019, a decline of 9.1%
• Enterprise deaths in the Financial & Insurance sector decreased by 8.6% between 2018 and 2019 and accounted for 3.4% of total enterprise deaths in 2019
• Industrial enterprise deaths decreased by 2.2% between 2018 and 2019 and accounted for 5.8% of total deaths in 2019

Persons Engaged in Enterprise Deaths by Sector

• A total of 27,738 persons were engaged in enterprises that ceased activity in 2019
• The Services sector accounted for the largest proportion (57.0%) of the total number of persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading in 2019 (15,803 employees)
• The second highest sector was Construction with 4,870 persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading in 2019, accounting for 17.6% of the total
• The number of persons engaged in enterprise deaths in the Industrial sector showed an annual percentage increase of 24.8% in 2019, increasing from 1,308 persons in 2018 to 1,633 persons in 2019
• Financial & Insurance was the only sector which had an annual decrease in persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading (-8.2%) in 2019

Number of Surviving Enterprises by Birth Year

All enterprise births were monitored for the years 2015 to 2019 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 83.6% of those born in 2015 to 98.9% of those born in 2019.  However, the 2019/2020 survival rates may be influenced by the presence of financial supports during COVID-19 and the discontinuity in earlier data referred to in the information note above.
• There were 18,100 new enterprise births in 2015, with 12,150 of these still active in reference year 2020, a 67.1% survival rate

Persons Engaged in Surviving Enterprises by Birth Year

• There were 23,073 persons engaged in new enterprises in 2015, of which 70.4% or 16,238 persons were still engaged in 2020
• The two-year survival rate for persons engaged increased slightly from 81.9% for enterprises birthed in 2015 to 83.2% in 2018