Tue, Oct 3rd 2023
In Switzerland, significantly more companies have filed for bankruptcy so far this year than last year. In total, around 10,000 companies are likely to go bankrupt in 2023.
The creditors’ association Creditreform announced on Tuesday that the mark of 700 bankruptcies per month was reached or exceeded three times in the first nine months of 2023. These are three record levels that have never been achieved before.
Compared to the previous year, the number of company bankruptcies (insolvencies) increased by a whopping eleven percent to 5,466. In September alone the increase was almost 20 percent with 700 bankruptcies.
However, bankruptcies fell significantly in September due to deficiencies in the organization of the companies affected, resulting in a net decline of 2.5 percent in September and only a slight increase (+1.5%) in the nine-month period. It appears that the legally enforced liquidation of companies that did not meet the relevant requirements is slowly bearing fruit, concludes Creditreform.
Overall, Creditreform expects almost 10,000 bankruptcy publications about companies this year, which would be just below the previous year’s figure (10,095). If you compare this number with the average for 2018 and 2019 or the period before the Corona crisis, this means an increase of almost a quarter.
Construction industry severely affected
The construction industry is most affected by the bankruptcies, with a share of 15.1 percent, which is likely to reflect the emerging slump. According to the information, wholesale and retail trade are close behind at 14.2 percent. This is followed by management consultancies (11.6%) and the hospitality industry (10.5%).
If you go into a little more detail, you can see an increase of a third in food producers in the processing industry compared to the previous year, and an increase of 27.5 percent in clothing. It is said that these are huge upheavals in manageable industries. At the moment, relief is only in sight in those sectors that are heavily influenced by private consumption, while export-oriented companies in particular are finding it difficult.
According to Creditreform, a cantonal comparison of the current year with the first nine months of 2018/2019 shows both significant declines and enormous increases, for example in the canton of Zurich, where an increase of 68.6 percent resulted, while Graubünden, Glarus and Geneva saw significant increases Acceptances registered.
According to the information, bankruptcy publications about private individuals in the first nine months are almost 2 percent above the previous year. Creditreform expects that just over 8,500 private bankruptcies will be published by the end of the year, which would correspond to growth of 2.4 percent.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic