{"id":477876,"date":"2021-03-23T17:00:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=477876"},"modified":"2021-03-23T16:26:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T14:26:12","slug":"these-businesses-are-being-hit-hard-by-closures-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/477876\/these-businesses-are-being-hit-hard-by-closures-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"These businesses are being hit hard by closures in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Statistics South Africa has published its February 2021 report on liquidations and insolvencies, with the data showing a some recovery for businesses after a bleak lockdown period.<\/p>\n<p>Liquidation refers to the winding-up of the affairs of a company or close corporation when liabilities exceed assets and it can be resolved by voluntary action or by an order of the court.<\/p>\n<p>Overall the total number of liquidations increased by 8.5% in February 2021 compared with February 2020. Liquidations of companies increased by 10 cases and liquidations of close corporations increased by four cases during this period.<\/p>\n<p>The total number of liquidations increased by 7.1% in the three months ended February 2021 compared with the three months ended February 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The below table highlights the business categories which reported the most liquidations in 2021, with financing, insurance, real estate and other business services hardest hit.<\/p>\n<p>Trade, catering, accommodation and the manufacturing sectors were also among the industries impacted.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Liquidations.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-477880 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Liquidations.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"703\" height=\"286\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Liquidations.png 703w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Liquidations-300x122.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 703px) 100vw, 703px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>While the number of liquidations paint a bleak picture, improvements have been seen in the insolvency category.<\/p>\n<p>Insolvency refers to an individual or partnership which is unable to pay its debt and is placed under final sequestration.<\/p>\n<p>The estimated number of insolvencies decreased by 6.7% in the three months ended January 2021 compared with the three months ended January 2020. There was a year-on-year decrease of 40.2% in January 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Seasonally adjusted insolvencies decreased by 40% in January 2021 compared with December 2020. This followed month-on-month changes of 10% in December 2020 and 67.4% in November 2020.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Decline\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While this issue has been exacerbated by the pandemic, sales data shows that some industries have been on a downward trend for a number of years.<\/p>\n<p>Economist Mike Schussler published a graph this weekend showing that consumer-heavy sectors such as fuel, retail and food have all seen major declines.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">SA consumers have been decimated as the larger retail here includes fuel, cars &amp; eating out. The small Furniture sector did best over the last 3 years but note that sit down restaurants are 31% down on 3 years ago! Stay &amp; work from home has meant fuel sales declined 13%! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/64ZbT4AgyJ\">pic.twitter.com\/64ZbT4AgyJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 mike schussler (@mikeschussler) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mikeschussler\/status\/1373531196009906176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 21, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>While businesses are seeing some recovery, statistical data and economists have warned of an irreversible loss of jobs in the country.<\/p>\n<p>February data from Statistics South Africa shows that the 2.1 million jobs recovered were not all people who were previously employed or returning to work.<\/p>\n<p>Stats SA\u2019s researchers found that these workers only made up around half of the figure, with the rest comprising a mix of people previously unemployed before the pandemic, and new entrants into the market.<\/p>\n<p>This means that approximately 1.8 million previously employed people who lost their jobs over lockdown have still not recovered.<\/p>\n<p>Labour absorption rates remain more than 4 percentage points below 2019 levels, said economists at <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/474662\/south-africa-is-seeing-a-lockdown-recovery-but-the-jobs-arent-coming-back\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BNP Paribas<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/477854\/businesses-are-worried-about-a-third-covid-19-wave-and-another-lockdown-for-south-africa\/\">Businesses are worried about a third Covid-19 wave and another lockdown for South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Statistics South Africa has published its February 2021 report on liquidations and insolvencies, with the data showing a slight recovery for businesses after a bleak lockdown period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":398917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,1809],"class_list":["post-477876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477876","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=477876"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477906,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477876\/revisions\/477906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}