Enterprises that do not belong to groups: a steady and significant turnover rate

In 2009, there were 2.26 million incorporated or unincorporated businesses in France that did not belong to enterprise groups. They were concentrated in the non-farm and non-financial market sectors. In the past fifteen years, the population of these “independent enterprises” has displayed an average turnover rate of approximately 10% a year. Of those in business in a given year, on average, 11% have just been established and nearly 9% will have gone out of business the following year. The proportion of births is especially high-at 13%-in the service sector, where they exceed deaths by nearly four points. The oldest enterprises and those with large workforces are the longest-lived, but the youngest and smallest are those that add jobs year after year. Independent enterprises begin their life cycle by catching up with the labour productivity level in their sector. In some cases, their life cycle ends because they fall out of step and so can no longer stay in business.