Establishing a company also involves running the risk of failure. After a few years, some entrepreneurs are forced to shut down.
According to the FSO Business demography statistics, the average survival rate of new businesses in Switzerland is 83.7% after a year of existence. Thus, nearly 33,000 companies created ‘ex-nihilo’ in 2018 were still active in 2019.
If we look at companies created in 2014, the survival chances are one year and is slightly higher in the secondary sector: 82.6% survived in 2015 compared to 82.3% in the tertiary sector. Businesses in the tertiary sector show a survival rate of 68.8% in 2016 compared to 69.5% in the secondary sector. After three years of existence, the trend is reversed: 59.7% in the tertiary sector and 59.4% in the secondary one. After five years of existence, these values reach 47.9% in the tertiary sector and 47.1% in the secondary sector.