{"id":443560,"date":"2020-10-28T07:07:47","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T05:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=443560"},"modified":"2020-10-28T07:07:47","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T05:07:47","slug":"big-jump-in-business-closures-across-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/443560\/big-jump-in-business-closures-across-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Big jump in business closures across South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa reported a sharp rise in liquidations in Q3 2020 as the coronavirus lockdown continues to have an impact on businesses, new StatsSA<\/a> <\/strong>data shows.<\/p>\n

The total number of liquidations increased by 27.4% in the third quarter of 2020 compared with the third quarter of 2019. A year-on-year increase of 54% was recorded in September 2020.<\/p>\n

A total of 1,395 liquidations have been recorded from 1 January – September, with the financing, insurance, real estate, business services industry reporting the most cases (428).<\/p>\n

It was followed by unclassified businesses (416 cases) and the trade, catering and accommodation industry (272 cases).<\/p>\n

Voluntary liquidations increased by 65 cases and compulsory liquidations increased by nine cases. \u00a0The total number of liquidations decreased by 7.7% in the first nine months of 2020 compared with the first nine months of 2019.<\/p>\n

Liquidation refers to the ‘winding-up of the affairs’ of a company when liabilities exceed assets and it can be resolved by voluntary action or by an order of the court.<\/p>\n

A voluntary liquidation takes place when a company, by its own choice, resolves to wind-up its affairs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Insolvencies\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The estimated number of insolvencies decreased by 61.3% in the three months ended August 2020, compared with the three months ended August 2019.<\/p>\n

Insolvency refers to an individual or partnership which is unable to pay its debt and is placed under final sequestration.<\/p>\n

The number of insolvencies does not refer to the number of persons involved, as a partnership which is unable to pay its debt is regarded as one insolvency, irrespective of the number of partners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unemployment<\/strong><\/p>\n

The business closures come at a time when South Africa faces a severe unemployment crisis with over two million South Africans losing their jobs during the height of the lockdown.<\/p>\n

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the three months to June 2020, revealed that the number of employed persons decreased by 2.2 million to 14.1 million in Q2: 2020 compared to Q1: 2020.<\/p>\n

This unprecedented change is the largest quarter one to quarter two decline since the survey began in 2008.<\/p>\n

The largest employment decreases were observed in the formal sector (1.2 million), followed by the informal sector (640,000), private households (311,000) and the agricultural sector (66,000).<\/p>\n

Compared to a year ago, total employment decreased by 2.2 million, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 35.5% (2.4 million) and the number of persons who were not economically active increased by 33.1% (5.1 million).<\/p>\n

Because of the removal of the 5 million-plus people from the workforce, Stats SA said the \u2018official\u2019 unemployment rate actually decreased to 23.3%. However, the broader definition of unemployment puts the rate higher at 42%.<\/p>\n

The data also marks the point where the economically inactive (20.6 million) outweigh the labour force (18.4 million).<\/p>\n

\n

Read: These 5 South African companies have been ranked among the best places to work in the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa reported a sharp rise in liquidations in Q3 2020 as the coronavirus lockdown continues to have an impact on businesses, new StatsSA data shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":255399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-443560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443560"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443996,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443560\/revisions\/443996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}