Retail sector sees most closures

The retail sector in Portugal has been the sector which has seen more closures and less new businesses started than any other in 2022.

According to the Informa D&B barometer and based on data to 31 October, 2022, there was a 10% fall in the setting up of new businesses like-for-like, and an increase of 7.7% in closures.
In the first 10 month of the year 40,529 new companies were created, an increase of 16% on the same period last year, but 4% down on 2019.
Since then, there were just three sectors that registered a fall in the number of new company registrations.
The retail sector was sector with the fewest new companies (-10%) with 3,816 created since the start of the year (down 422 like-for-like). This was followed by industry with a fall of 4.4% (1,786 new companies), and agriculture and other natural resource companies (-3.1%) with 1,292 new companies created.
On the other hand, the transport sector saw the most growth, with a total of 3,503 companies to 31 October, which represents an increase of 123% like-for-like (1,934 more than in 2021) according to Informa D&B.
In absolute terms, the companies services sector enjoyed the greatest growth, with a total of 6,924 companies set up by 31 October (+16%) on the like-for-like period, followed by general services, with 5,569 companies created (+15%).
Since the start of the year, 10,078 companies have closed (+00.3% like-for-like on 2021). “For this period half of all sectors presented numbers above 2021”, states Informa D&B.
The retail sector was most hammered with 1,550 companies closing (+7.7%), 110 are than in the same period in 2021. This was followed by real estate with 742 closures (+7.2%) and general services (+3.1%).