The global crisis has heightened interest in entrepreneurship as an essential
element to foster economic recovery and employment growth.
Business start-up rates remain below pre-crisis levels - - particularly in the
Eurozone - - indicating that entrepreneurs may continue to be suffering from
restrictive lending conditions, according to new OECD data released in the
latest issue of
Entrepreneurship at a Glance.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), the Paris-based think-tank for 34 mainly developed countries
including Ireland, says diverging patterns of business startup rates have
emerged across OECD economies five years after the onset of the financial
crisis; startup rates remain below pre-crisis levels in most Eurozone economies
and particularly in Spain, but tentative signs of a stabilisation are emerging.
In France startup rates were boosted in 2009 and 2010 by new legislation
supporting entrepreneurs.
Australia and the United Kingdom are showing
tentative signs of a pick-up in startups but this is driven by an increase in
sole-proprietor self-employed businesses, which may reflect readjustment
strategies to unemployment.
The data show startup rates are particularly low in Spain while in France they
have been boosted by the introduction of measures to ease bureaucracy and
improve tax incentives for the self-employed.
The number of business closures has not fallen back significantly following
rapid rises in the wake of the crisis, says the report. Relatively high rates of
bankruptcies in Australia and the United Kingdom are consistent with a generally
brisker churn rate of business creation and exit.
Set against this backdrop however attitudes to business failures have become
more positive, with the crisis serving to raise awareness of the important role
played by entrepreneurs in the recovery, removing much of the stigma previously
associated with failure. Increasingly, the public recognises the importance of
giving entrepreneurs a ‘second chance’, the report adds.
The data also shows:
- Young people are more optimistic about the
possibility of setting up a business in the near future, even though the
actual rate of entrepreneurship among under 25-year-olds is generally low –
around 4.0% in OECD countries;
- Self –employed women earn 35% less than men
on average, compared with a wage gap of 15% among employees.
The countries covered in Entrepreneurship at a
Glance include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan,
Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, the Slovak Republic,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United
States.
For data on Ireland,
see
here or 'Related' below.
