During the week from 13 to 19 February included (week 7), the business courts pronounced 235 bankruptcies, resulting in a total of 564 job losses.
The figures for week 7 reveal an increase in the number of bankruptcies and job losses compared to the previous week.
During the first 7 weeks of 2023, the business courts pronounced 1,276 bankruptcies. This figure is 11.7% higher than in the first 7 weeks of 2022.
Job losses per bankruptcy are 60.8% higher in 2023 than in the previous year. This increase is mainly due to the bankruptcy of a large enterprise in the trade sector in January. Excluding this enterprise from the figures, the ratio of job losses per bankruptcy for the first 7 weeks of 2023 falls from 3.93 to 2.37 and remains lower than in 2022 (2.44) and 2019 (2.69). So this means that proportionally fewer jobs were lost per bankruptcy in the first 7 weeks of 2023 than in 2022 and 2019.
The number of bankruptcies and job losses for the first 7 weeks of the year
| Category | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2023/2022 | 2023/2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bancruptcies | 1,323 | 1,352 | 814 | 1,142 | 1,276 | +11.7% | -3.6% |
| Job losses | 3,553 | 4,021 | 2,748 | 2,792 | 5,015 | +79.6% | +41.1% |
| Job losses/Bancruptcies | 2.69 | 2.97 | 3.38 | 2.44 | 3.93 | +60.8% | +46.3% |
This is what emerged from the weekly bankruptcy figures produced by Statbel based on the orders of business courts. These interim weekly estimates make it possible to quickly observe the first trends.