The volume of business failures remains stable in the first quarter of 2024 in Occitanie

Les défaillances d'entreprises restent à des niveaux élevés au premier trimestre 2024, mais une amélioration semble se dessiner, selon le cabinet Altares. MAXPPP – Jean-Luc Flémal

La région fait partie des six régions françaises où les défauts d’entreprises sont les mieux contenus, avec une moyenne inférieure à 20 %.

The Altares group, expert and reference in business data, has just revealed the figures for business failures in France for the 1st quarter of 2024. The number of failures is increasing. student at just over 17,000 over the first three months of the year, "the highest in almost 10 years". However, "the increase slows to +19.4 %". It’ represents the lowest increase in the number of defects in two years".

Indeed, while the situation "remains very tense" for businesses and on the employment front, "first weak signals of calm are emerging in certain activities and in several departments& ;quot;. Unsurprisingly, it is  the activities linked to real estate which are "still very large difficulties". The housing crisis, both in mainland France and in the regions, continues to weigh down the activity of related businesses.

L’Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales better off

In Occitanie, the number of failures is contained. It is one of the "six regions that contain the increase in defects below the average of 20 %". In the first quarter, the increase was 19.5% in the region. Thus, 1 573 failures were recorded there. With unequal situations depending on the departments:  three of them "show increases beyond 30 %".

These are Gard (+45%), Hautes-Pyrénées (+37%) and Aveyron (+33%). Hérault and Tarn are at +25% and Ariège a little lower. The other departments contain the increase below 20%, notably Haute-Garonne (+17%). Four of them even fall below 10%: Aude, Pyrénées-Orientales, Tarn-et-Garonne and Lot.

"A slow improvement is taking shape"

"At the end of this first quarter, the number of business failures increases further and the symbolic bar of& nbsp;60 000 defects over 12 months was crossed in February for the first time since summer 2016, comments Thierry Millon, director of Altares studies. But a slow improvement is taking shape. Thanks to a better month of March, the increase in bankruptcies remains below the 20% mark.

Besides, "in one department in five, we observe a stabilization or even a reduction in the opening of procedures". Which should not allow us to ignore very strong regional disparities. This is the case of Île de France, "very sensitive to real estate difficulties", which records "its worst first quarter in 20 years".

A "threat to nearly 59 000 jobs"

The situation is improving for consumer-related activities, "significantly slowing down the loss rate among VSEs". On the other hand, "tensions remain very strong for large SMEs (50 to 200 employees), whose number of defects increases by nearly 60 %&quot ;. In addition, the fragility of these employers "poses a threat to nearly& nbsp;59 000 future jobs".

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