Number of bankruptcies rose sharply in the first half of the year

The number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands rose sharply in the first half of the year, faillissementsdossier.nl reports. According to the bankruptcy-focused website, more businesses have collapsed, especially in the hospitality, retail, and industrial sectors. These occurrences are associated with inflation. As a result, businesses are spending more money on things like energy and buying products and they are nowhere near being able to recoup all of these costs through their customers.

From January to June, faillissementsdossier.nl counted a total of 1636 companies and institutions that went bankrupt. In the same period last year, the figure was 1006, an increase of more than 60 percent. Last month, the number of bankruptcy cases almost doubled.

Earlier, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) also indicated that the number of bankruptcies was on the rise again, after hardly any companies went bankrupt during the coronavirus pandemic years. However, according to the latest CBS figures for May, despite the increase, the number of bankruptcies still remained below the level of the pre-pandemic period. CBS will not release figures for June until next week.

Robert Jan Blom of bankruptcydossier.nl explained that the coronavirus boom kept many companies afloat for a long time. But for some companies, he says, it was just a "stay of execution." "These are companies that otherwise would have gone bankrupt as well, simply because they were running poorly. The aid provided them with a safety net. Now they still have to pay back, and that hits them particularly hard," the expert argued.

The chairman of MKB-Nederland, Jacco Vonhof, already expressed concern about the future of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Netherlands at a congress of his business organization last month. He pointed out that the wave of bankruptcies predicted by experts does not seem far off, and expressed concern about the high wage demands of the trade unions and the shortage of personnel.