Fewer businesses are lowering their shutters, but new openings are also slowing down. The balance sheet for the first three months of this year closes in the red – a quarter which traditionally registers a minus sign in the Registry of the Chambers of Commerce with a loss of 15.401 businesses. The same negative balance as 12 months ago, when 15.905 companies were missing.
Between January and March 2018 there was a further slowdown in the registrations of new companies (2.700 less than in the first quarter of last year, equal to a contraction of 2,4%) and the simultaneous decrease in terminations (about 3 thousand units in less than in the first quarter of 2017, equal to a slowdown of 2,5%). As a result of these two dynamics, the stock of existing businesses at the end of March stood at 6.070.191 units, of which 1.315.304 (21,7%) were artisans.
This is - in a nutshell - the dynamic that emerges from reading the official data on the birth and death rate of Italian companies in the first quarter of 2018, released by Unioncamere - InfoCamere.
The positive data of the significant drop in terminations (as mentioned, 3 thousand less than in the first quarter of 2017), is associated with an alarm bell on the entrepreneurial vitality of the system: the data on registrations for the first quarter of 2018 is in fact the worst of the corresponding quarters of the last decade, testifying to the fact that – despite the signs of recovery of the Italian economy – market conditions continue to suggest caution to those who nurture entrepreneurial projects.
From the point of view of legal forms, the only positive contribution to the balance came from companies set up as joint stock companies (+16.626 units in the quarter) which recorded a quarterly growth of 1%, an improvement compared to 2017 when it stopped at 0,85%. The analysis by legal form reaffirms how the crisis continues to make itself felt above all among sole proprietorships and, for some time with insistence, among partnerships. In particular, for the former the strong incidence of terminations on the total closures of the quarter weighs heavily (70,6% of those who closed their doors are made up of sole proprietorships) which, combined with the limited contribution to total registrations (58,9% %), sufficient to explain the negative balance for the entire period.
The data disaggregated on the basis of the four large territorial districts, highlight negative balances between registrations and terminations for all macro-areas, both for enterprises as a whole and for artisan enterprises only. Examining the individual districts, the South recorded the best result of the quarter: "only" -1.514 businesses, equal to a negative change in the stock of 0,07%.
Looking at Italy, almost all regions – with the exception of Sicily (+0,18%), Lazio (+0,16%) and Campania (+0,07%) – show negative balances, led by Marche and Valle d'Aosta (-0,64%) followed by Piedmont
(-0,60%). Among the artisans, no region closes in the positive and in seven cases (Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Umbria, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily) there is a further contraction compared to the same quarter last year.
Among the sectors, the most significant positive balances are recorded in the rental activities, travel agencies and business services (+1.326 units, for a growth of 0,7%), in professional, scientific and technical activities (one thousand units in the first three months of 2018) and in information and communication services (+580). Compared to the first quarter of 2017, two of the three numerically largest sectors of the economy show a trend reversal, while continuing to register a "minus" sign in front of their balance, with stock losses smaller than twelve months ago : construction (-0,61% against -0,67%) and manufacturing activities
(-0,53% against -0,57%). Trade, on the other hand, continues to retreat, losing almost a thousand units more than in the same period last year: a negative balance of 9.648 companies (-0,57% in relative terms), a worse result than that of 2017, when the balance stood at -8.766 units.
