According to figures from the GSC association and Altares firm, the first half of 2024 was marked by an acceleration of business failures. As a result, job losses for their leaders are increasing.
Almost 30,000 business leaders lost their jobs in the first half of the year, a fifth more than last year at the same time, according to a report from the GSC association and the Altares firm published this Sunday, August 25.
This affected 29,958 people in the first six months of the year, an increase of 18.4% over one year. Altares had counted 57,729 business failures in 2023, an increase of 35.8% compared to 2022. The median age of the entrepreneurs concerned is 45.8 years.
Difficulty imagining “rebound”
Despite “the desire to do it” that has prevailed in France for about twenty years, “about four out of ten companies have not blown their fifth candle”, notes in the press release published on Sunday Thierry Millon, Altares study director, referring. “the trauma” suffered by those leaders, especially “the third person over 50 years of age who will have more difficulty thinking about their recovery”.
Managers of structures with fewer than five employees account for almost nine job losses out of 10. There is an increase of 40.2% to 1,661 in the number of managers of companies with between 6 and 9 employees and 1,661, an increase of 31.1% to 1,378 in the heads of SMEs. .
These companies suffer from “inadequate financial structures that weaken them”, the study noted. Managers of structures with a turnover of less than 500,000 euros represent 76.5% of those affected.
A matter of “priority” for the future Prime Minister
The increase in job losses is similar between age categories, from 15.8% for those under 26 (2.5% for those affected) to 19.7% for those aged 41-50 (28.6%). The real estate crisis affects all construction professionals: 7,669 business leaders lost their jobs in the first half (+34.2%).
Commerce lost 6,456 managers (+15%), that is 1,296 (+30.5%) of transport and logistics, and 3,716 (+18.2%) for business services. Many jobs have been lost in accommodation, catering and drinking establishments (3,734), but with less progress (+7.6%).
A quarter of the job losses are in Île-de-France (7,215, +32%). Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Hauts-de-France are the most savers with respective increases of 9.5% and 6.6%.
“Our creators of jobs and wealth are abandoned as soon as their ship enters”, regrets Anthony Streicher, president of the association GSC (social guarantee of business leaders), a voluntary unemployment insurance created by employers’ organizations for self-employed workers. For him, this must be a “priority matter” for the new Prime Minister.