Netherlands businesses less worried about continued existence

Business owners in almost all branches of the non-financial sector were much more confident that their business will be able to exist for at least another year in May than they were in April.

This likely has to do with coronavirus measures being further relaxed, and businesses being more confident about the measures they can take themselves, like cutting costs and setting up their business to function in the 1.5 meter society, Statistics Netherlands reported on Tuesday.

The number of companies that said in April that they'd likely not survive another six months decreased significantly. Retail saw the biggest increase in confidence - in April 9 percent of retail business expected to still exist a year in the future, in May it was 65 percent. In IT services the companies confident in their continued existence increased by 48 percent and among cleaning companies by 46 percent.

Confidence in survival for at least another year was lowest in the aviation sector, with only 2 percent of companies thinking they'll make it, followed by gambling and lottery companies at 6 percent and the travel industry at 10 percent.