Feared wave of bankruptcies looms: “Increase in Antwerp is simply phenomenal”
The number of bankruptcies in Belgium to more than 1,000 companies per month, for more than a year ago. This is not entirely unexpected, because a large part of the corona support measures are gradually ending.
Last month, 1,047 companies went bankrupt, an increase of more than 62 percent compared to June 2021, trade information office Graydon reports. 1,481 jobs were at risk as a direct result of the employer’s bankruptcy.
The trend is now clearly observable. “At the federal level, this month shows an increase in the number of bankruptcies for the ninth month in a row, and this every time in the same month the year before. We are not seeing any records being broken at the federal level, but we are at the regional and provincial level,” says the trade information office Graydon.
The increase is strongest in the Flemish Region, where Graydon recorded 618 percent last June. Never before have more bankruptcies been pronounced in Flanders in a month of June.
Experts have seen the storm lingering for some time. Several measures that were started during the corona crisis are almost over. In particular, the extinction of the payment deferral that the tax authorities and the RSZ allowed would be the death knell for many destitute companies.
Antwerp as an ominous precursor
In the first half of 2022, 5,139 bankruptcies were pronounced in Belgium, 56 percent more than the same period a year earlier.
“Within the province of Antwerp, the increase is simply phenomenal,” Graydon writes. “Here we record 1,165 for the first six months of this year. An increase of 124 percent and the largest number ever expressed by the province in the first half of the year.” That is a bad omen for the whole of Flanders, because historically the province of Antwerp is often a forerunner.
The construction, catering and transport sectors are traditional sectors with the highest number of bankruptcies. “The trend of recent months, where we are seeing plans that more construction companies are going out of business than catering businesses, is continuing”, Graydon†