Business 'deaths' pass 'births' for the first time in 13 years

MORE companies folded than were launched in 2022, sending the business "death" rate above "births" for the first time in 13 years.

- Geoff Ho

The Office for National Statistics said "business births", defined as new firms registered with the Government, fell from 364,000 to 337,000 last year. That took the business birth rate new firms as a share of all active companies down from 12.4% to 11.5%

At the same time, the number of "business deaths", or firms that have ceased trading, rose by 17,000 or 5.2% to 345,000, sending the business death rate up 0.6 percentage points to 11.8%.