From birth to death: a closer look at business demography in selected EU countries and the Republic of Korea

This article presents statistics for the Republic of Korea and for some of the largest Member States of the European Union (EU) on the number of active enterprises, the creation (‘births’) of new enterprises, the survival of such new enterprises and the closure (‘deaths’) of enterprises. This is generally called business demography statistics. The economic sectors covered are the business economy, more specifically industry, construction and services.

In 2010, the EU economy was made up of around 24 million active enterprises (based on data from 26 Member States). The largest number of active enterprises in the EU was registered in Italy with 4.0 million, followed by Spain, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. In Korea, the population of active enterprises was 5.1 million in 2010. In the EU as a whole and in the five largest European economies, the service sector made up around three quarters of the active enterprises. In Korea, the service sector was even more dominant, making up 85% of the total population of active enterprises.