You are here: Home / Statistics / Business in Ireland 2019 / Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

Business in Ireland 2019

Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

Open in Excel:

CSO Business Demography data monitors the number of enterprise births (new enterprises created) and deaths (enterprises that ceased trading) in the business economy. Births and deaths due to mergers, takeovers, break-ups, change of activity or the restructuring of a set of enterprises are all excluded from the data.

This chapter presents this information at sectoral level as well as for the total business economy. It is also possible to track new enterprise births in order to gain a better understanding of the types of business that are more likely to survive the early years of their life cycle¹.

¹See Appendix 2 for full definitions of enterprise births and deaths.

Supplementary Information Notice - Business Demography 2019

There are a number of changes to the 2019 Business Demography process, which has caused a break in series to previous years. This means direct comparisons between 2019 and previous figures are not truly reflective of the underlying changes. Please see the Business Demography 2019 release for further information.

	Deaths	Births
2014	15337	16256
2015	15944	18100
2016	14629	19249
2017	16586	22241
2018	17807	14458
2019		14113

In 2019, enterprise births showed an annual decrease of 2.4% to 14,113
This was the lowest number of enterprise births between 2014 and 2019
The number of new births decreased by 13.2% in 2019 when compared to 2014
The total number of enterprises that ceased trading during 2018 was 17,807, an increase of 7.4% from 2017 levels
Enterprise deaths increased by 16.1% in the period 2014 to 2018

	Deaths	Births
2014	22584	19383
2015	21018	23073
2016	20442	24382
2017	21679	23621
2018	18014	18316
2019		28656

The number of persons engaged in enterprise births rose by 56.5% in 2019 compared to 2018
Persons engaged in enterprise births increased from 19,383 in 2014 to 28,656 in 2019
The total number of persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading during 2018 was 18,014, a decrease of 16.9% from 2017 and 20.2% when compared to 2014

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2014	1110	3526	2468	8735	418
2015	1186	4226	2573	9572	544
2016	1329	4623	2848	9983	466
2017	1409	5345	2933	11330	1223
2018	865	3364	1945	7417	867
2019	889	3323	1788	7635	477

The largest annual decrease in the number of enterprise births took place in the Financial and Insurance sector, which showed a decrease of 390 new enterprises on the previous year from 867 to 477 in 2019
The only increase in enterprise births between 2014 and 2019 occurred in the Financial and Insurance sector (+14.1%)
Between 2018 and 2019 new births in the Distribution sector decreased by 8.1% and experienced the largest sectoral decrease between 2014 and 2019 at 27.6%
The Construction sector showed an annual decrease of 1.2% in enterprise births in 2019 and between 2014 and 2019 enterprise births decreased by 5.8%
Enterprise births for the Services sector increased by 2.9% in 2019 and decreased by 12.6% in the five year period from 2014 to 2019
Industrial enterprise births showed an annual increase of 2.8% in 2019, while between 2014 and 2019 there was a decrease of 19.9%

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2014	1276	3663	2850	11157	437
2015	1704	4376	3333	13211	450
2016	1571	5186	3410	13658	557
2017	1348	5441	3285	12988	559
2018	1051	3798	2536	10549	382
2019	1842	4935	3081	18139	659

The largest number of persons engaged in enterprise births in 2019 was in the Services sector with 18,139 persons
This was followed by the Construction sector with 4,935 persons engaged
The Financial and Insurance sector accounted for the least number of persons engaged (659) in new enterprise births in 2019

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2014	898	3019	2662	8257	502
2015	961	3163	2671	8515	635
2016	883	3048	2500	7771	428
2017	993	3531	2762	8766	534
2018	1053	3958	2709	9245	843

The number of enterprise deaths increased across all sectors, excluding Distribution, from 2017 to 2018
The Services sector had the highest number of deaths in 2018 with 9,245 enterprises ceasing activity, accounting for 51.9% of total deaths
The Construction sector accounted for the second largest proportion (22.2%) of total deaths in 2018 with 3,958 enterprises ceasing
The largest annual percentage increase for enterprise deaths in 2018 was in the Financial and Insurance sector which increased from 534 enterprise deaths in 2017 to 843 enterprise deaths in 2018, an increase of 57.9%
Enterprise deaths in the Distribution sector decreased by 1.9% from 2017 to 2018 and accounted for 15.2% of total enterprise deaths

	Industry	Construction	Distribution	Services	Financial and Insurance
2014	1169	3142	4127	13615	531
2015	1602	3245	4293	11463	415
2016	1086	3267	4195	11422	471
2017	1661	3881	3938	11846	354
2018	994	3729	3251	9714	326

There were 18,014 persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2018
The Services sector accounted for the largest proportion (53.9%) of the total number of persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2018 with 9,714 employees
The Construction sector was the second highest with 3,729 persons engaged in enterprises that ceased trading in 2018, accounting for 20.7% of the total
The Industry sector showed the largest annual percentage decrease (-40.2%) in the number of persons engaged in enterprise deaths in 2018, decreasing from 1,661 persons in 2017 to 994 persons in 2018

	2014 births	2015 births	2016 births	2017 births	2018 births
Year of birth	16257	18100	19249	22241	14458
Survived 1 year	13952	15133	16687	19220	12188
Survived 2 years	12685	14532	15451	17187
Survived 3 years	12220	13633	14160
Survived 4 years	11593	12721
Survived 5 years	10873

All enterprise births were monitored for the years 2014 to 2018 to assess their survival rate and the resulting effect on employment
The one year survival rate which relates to enterprises born in one year and still active in the next year, decreased from 85.8% in 2014 to 84.3% in 2018
There were 16,257 new enterprise births in 2014, with 10,873 of these still active in reference year 2019, a 66.9% survival rate

	2014 births	2015 births	2016 births	2017 births	2018 births
Year of birth	19383	23073	24382	23621	18316
Survived 1 year	16837	19674	21094	20499	16209
Survived 2 years	15559	18891	20070	19091
Survived 3 years	15006	17871	18748
Survived 4 years	14909	17090
Survived 5 years	13400

There were 19,383 persons engaged in enterprise births in 2014, of which 69.1% or 13,400 persons were still engaged in 2019
The one year survival rate for persons engaged in enterprise births from 2014 to 2018 increased from 86.9% to 88.5%
The two year survival rate for persons engaged increased slightly from 80.3% for enterprises birthed in 2014 to 80.8% for enterprises birthed in 2017
The largest number of persons engaged by year of birth was in 2019 with 28,656 persons

2.1 Number of enterprise births and associated persons engaged by sector, 2014 to 2019

2.2 Number of enterprise deaths and associated persons engaged by sector, 2014 to 2018

2.3 Number of enterprise survivals and associated persons engaged by sector, 2014 to 2018

Go to next chapter >>>Small and Medium Enterprises

Why you can Trust the CSO

Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.

go to trust & transparency

Table 2.1 Number of enterprise births and associated persons engaged by sector, 2014 to 2019
Sector	Enterprise births							Persons engaged in birthed enterprises
	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	Total	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	Total
Industry	1,110	1,186	1,329	1,409	865	889	6,788	1,276	1,704	1,571	1,348	1,051	1,842	8,792
Construction	3,526	4,226	4,623	5,345	3,364	3,323	24,407	3,663	4,376	5,186	5,441	3,798	4,935	27,399
Distribution	2,468	2,573	2,848	2,933	1,945	1,788	14,555	2,850	3,333	3,410	3,285	2,536	3,081	18,495
Services	8,735	9,572	9,983	11,330	7,417	7,635	54,672	11,157	13,211	13,658	12,988	10,549	18,139	79,702
Financial and Insurance	418	544	466	1,223	867	477	3,995	437	450	557	559	382	659	3,044
Total Business Economy¹	16,256	18,100	19,249	22,241	14,458	14,113	104,417	19,383	23,073	24,382	23,621	18,316	28,656	137,431
Source: CSO Business Demography
¹Totals may differ due to rounding.

Table 2.2 Number of enterprise deaths and associated persons engaged by sector, 2014 to 2018
Sector	Enterprise deaths						Persons engaged in enterprise deaths
	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018¹	Total	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018¹	Total
Industry	898	961	883	993	1,053	4,788	1,169	1,602	1,086	1,661	994	6,512
Construction	3,019	3,163	3,048	3,531	3,958	16,719	3,142	3,245	3,267	3,881	3,729	17,264
Distribution	2,662	2,671	2,500	2,762	2,709	13,304	4,127	4,293	4,195	3,938	3,251	19,804
Services	8,257	8,515	7,771	8,766	9,245	42,554	13,615	11,463	11,422	11,846	9,714	58,060
Financial and Insurance	502	635	428	534	843	2,942	531	415	471	354	326	2,097
Total Business Economy²	15,337	15,944	14,629	16,586	17,807	80,303	22,584	21,018	20,442	21,679	18,014	103,737
Source: CSO Business Demography
¹Death figures for 2018 estimated. Enterprises need 2 years of inactivity before being declared a final death.
²Totals may differ due to rounding.

Table 2.3 Number of enterprise survivals and associated persons engaged, 2014 to 2018
	Enterprise survivals							Persons engaged in enterprise survivals
		Survived							Survived
Year	Enterprise Births	1 years	2 years	3 years	4 years	5 years	Year	Enterprise Births	1 years	2 years	3 years	4 years	5 years
2014	16,257	13,952	12,685	12,220	11,593	10,873	2014	19,383	16,837	15,559	15,006	14,909	13,400
2015	18,100	15,133	14,532	13,633	12,721		2015	23,073	19,674	18,891	17,871	17,090
2016	19,249	16,687	15,451	14,160			2016	24,382	21,094	20,070	18,748
2017	22,241	19,220	17,187				2017	23,621	20,499	19,091
2018	14,458	12,188					2018	18,316	16,209
2019	14,113						2019	28,656
Source: CSO Business Demography

Business in Ireland 2019

Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

Enterprise Births, Survivals and Deaths

Contents

Why you can Trust the CSO

Contact:

Links:

Careers

Follow: