Business failure up as more firms go bust

There has been a big rise in the numbers of businesses closing their doors for good.  The latest statistics from Equifax reveal that the number of firms failing during October and November this year was nearly 30% higher than the same period in 2007.

This year on year increase has been seen across all regions of the UK and across all sectors.  While cetain sectors like construction predictably continued to suffer badly, failures up 48%, sectors that had previously proved resilient were also in trouble.

As Neil Munroe of Equifax says:

In particular, the Transport & Communications sector had been faring fairly well until the last couple of months when a 47.2% increase year on year has been recorded.  This is probably a direct consequence of the slowdown in the manufacturing and retail sectors.

The region of the UK to feel the harshest effects in terms of business closures was the East Midlands, which saw a 40% rise in businesses going bust during October and November.

[Picture credit: PaulDWaite licenced from Flickr]