Enterprise creations in 2015: sharp downturn in micro-entrepreneur registrations

In 2015, there were 525,100 enterprise births in France, 5% fewer than in 2014. This reduction was due to the sharp downturn in self-managed micro-entrepreneur registrations (-21% compared with 2014). In contrast, other enterprise births increased strongly (+13%), especially other sole proprietorships (+28%) and, to a lesser extent, companies (+4%). There was a 17% drop in business births in 2015, with construction accounting for half of the downturn overall. For all types of enterprise combined, births decreased in almost all regions. However, they increased in Île-de-France, driven by the success of taxi operations (which include transport vehicles with driver enterprises) and the “other postal and courier activities” sector. Excluding self-managed micro-entrepreneurs, only 8% of enterprises had employees when they started up. On average they had 2.5 employees. For sole proprietorships, the average age remained at 38 years old and the proportion of women was 40%.