Good and bad news on bankruptcies

The number of companies that went bankrupt in March was down in Belgium by a slight 2.5% on the same month a year ago, according to research bureau Graydon. However, the total so far this year is up on 2010 by just over 1% at 2,705, hitting a new record high. Graydon speaks of “a tentative trend towards stagnation, albeit at an especially high level”.

The trend is not equal across all Flemish provinces: The number of failures is still rising in Limburg and West Flanders, falling in East Flanders and moving hardly at all in Antwerp and Flemish Brabant.

In March alone, bankruptcies affected 2,327 jobs, bringing total job losses for the first quarter to 6,109 – that’s 9% fewer redundancies than in 2010 for the country as a whole and 12% fewer in Flanders. In Brussels Region, company closures saw job losses in the first quarter increase by 40% compared to the same period in 2010.

(April 6, 2011)