Leading business information provider, Equifax, is reporting that business failures at the start of 2010 are continuing the downward trend seen at the end of last year.
“Whilst we must be extremely careful not to get carried away by these figures – they only represent one month – they do seem to suggest that the pace of the economic downturn is slowing” said Neil Munroe, External Affairs Director, Equifax.
The Equifax figures* show that overall there was a 9.2% decrease in businesses going under in the first month of the new decade, compared to December.
The Services industry was the strongest performing market sector with a 15.3% decline in failures in the first month of the year compared to December. The Manufacturing and Wholesale sectors both saw increases of 8.2% and 3.9% respectively.
“The end of the year may well have signalled the most appropriate time from a financial accounting point of view for some businesses to be wound up and therefore pushed up the numbers in December slightly. But we still feel these figures show some optimism and should be good news for general business confidence,” added Neil Munroe.
*The calculations are based on the average number of businesses failing for each week of December (5 weeks) and January (4 weeks).
