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08. 02. 12. - 16:00

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08. 02. 12. - 16:00

Austria registers decrease of business bankruptcies

The number of Austrian business bankruptcies is in decline despite increasingly difficult economic circumstances in Europe.

Creditreform, an association for the protection of creditors, announced yesterday (Tues) that 6,184 firms with headquarters in Austria were forced to stop operating in 2011. The organisation said this was a decrease of seven per cent compared to 2010.

Creditreform said almost 175,000 businesses went bust across Europe in 2011. Bulgaria recorded the strongest rise from 2010 to 2011 at 114.3 per cent, followed by Slovenia (32.4 per cent), Greece (27.3 per cent) and the Czech Republic (21.5 per cent).

Latvia (66.8 per cent) and Estonia (49.2 per cent) registered the most significant decreases in 2011, Creditreform found. Figures also declined significantly in Romania (16.4 per cent), Denmark (15.7 per cent) and Germany (5.8 per cent).

Around 37 per cent of the companies which went bust in 2011 were operating in the service sector while 31 per cent belonged to the retail trade. At 21.4 per cent, more than one in five of the enterprises which went bankrupt last year were active in domestic and international construction.

Austria did not only record a decrease of business bankruptcies in 2011. The country also managed to achieve a jobless rate lower than any other European country. Eurostat, the European Commission’s (EC) statistic authority, announced that 23.8 million people were out of work in the European Union (EU) in December 2011.

The number of unemployed Austrians edged down by 4.3 per cent from 2010 to 2011 to 310,000, according to Austrian Social Democratic (SPÖ) Labour Minister Rudolf Hundstorfer. This development helped Austria to an annual jobless rate of just four per cent. At the same time, the number of employed residents of the country reached a new record level of 3.42 million.

News that Austria, Germany and several other European countries registered fewer business bankruptcies in 2011 than in the year before comes only days after drugstore chain Schlecker started controlled insolvency procedures. The firm runs 7,000 stores in Germany and nearly 1,000 in Austria where 3,000 people work for Schlecker.

Austrian unionists said they were holding talks with Schlecker works council officials and managers of the company to ensure a continuation of salary transfers. Economic experts think that hundreds of unprofitable branches of Schlecker in Germany and the seven other European countries it is represented in may be sold to avoid a collapse of the German company.

Schlecker officials issued contradicting statements regarding possible plans to sell the firm’s international business. Reports have it that Schlecker Austria fared better in the past years than its mother company. However, the German company’s Austrian affiliate would almost certainly be affected by creditors’ demands for compensation if the firm were to fail in reaching a settlement that allowed it to keep operating.

Austrian Times

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