General review of the active enterprises and employment
In 2021, the number of active enterprises in Bulgaria is 381 457, which is 4.8% less compared to the previous year 2020.
The active enterprises with zero employees represent the largest proportion of the population of all active enterprises during the period (2017 - 2021). In 2021, this share is 52.2% of all active enterprises, followed by the „1 - 4 employees“ group with 34.0%, and the lowest share of enterprises is in the „5 - 9 employees“ group - 6.6%.
The number of persons employed in „10 or more employees“ group represents 67.1% of all employees for the 2017 - 2021 period, while the proportion of enterprises in this group is 7.2% of all active enterprises. Contrastingly, 8.7% of the total number of employees in the country corresponds to the largest group of active enterprises with zero employees.
Newborn enterprises
The newly born enterprises for 2021 in the selected economic sectors are 37 898, or 9.9% of the total number of enterprises. For the last five years, the annual average percentage of newborn enterprises was 10.7% of the active enterprises during this period.
The structure of the newborn enterprises by economic sector remains relatively stable for the last five years. The highest share of newborn enterprises is in section G – „Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles“ - 34.8%. At the same time, the smallest share of newborn enterprises is in section B – „Mining and quarrying“ with less than 0.1% on average for the 2017 - 2021 period. This tendency remains intact in 2021 as well.
During the observed period, the largest number of newborn enterprises had no employees. In 2021, 30 071 newborn enterprises fall into the „0 employees“ group, followed by the „1 - 4 employees“ group with 6 907 enterprises. The newborn enterprises with 10 or more employees are only 342.
Survived enterprises
Almost 79.4% of the enterprises born in 2020 survive one year later, as in the group of „1 - 4 employees“ this share is highest - 89.8%.
In 2020, the newborn enterprises are 35 203, and 27 943 of them successfully survived in 2021.
The highest share of survived enterprises is in section D – „Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply“ - 95.8%, and the lowest - in section L – „Real estate activities“ - 61.6%. Since 2016, the year-on-year survival rate shows a gradual fall in the number of survived enterprises for all of the four groups according to the number of employees. The share of enterprises born in 2016 and still active five years later is 5.5%, while the share of those born in 2020 and active in 2021 is 7.3% of the total number of active enterprises in 2021.