AD ALTA 

 

JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

 

 

 

(811 thousand). Further follow such countries as Sweden, 
Belgium and Hungary. The second half of the pack is opened by 
Slovakia with the result of 415 thousand, followed by Romania 
and Bulgaria. Yet the fewest number of enterprises in 2011 
functioned in Slovenia - 117 thousand, then in Latvia - 79 
thousand and Estonia - only 55 thousand economic entities. 

Chart 2 Number of enterprises in Poland and selected EU 
countries in 2011 (in thousand) 

 

Source: Report on the state of the sector of small and medium-
sized enterprises in Poland in the years 2012-2013, PARP, 
Warsaw 2014, pp. 17-18

 

 
When examining the number of enterprises in European 
economies it should be borne in mind that in this area the 
number of newly established enterprises is extremely important 
but not more than the negative aspect regarding the number of 
liquidated companies. These two indicators have a direct impact 
on the total number of companies; therefore, chart 3 depicts data 
describing both values (to facilitate the analysis). It should be 
noted that, as it was in the case of the previous measures and 
analysis, this time Poland again performs very well as compared 
to its European competitors - the fourth position in terms of the 
number of newly created entities in 2011 (247 thousand). The 
three countries that obtained a better result than the Polish 
economy was France (328 thousand), Italy (265 thousand) and 
Germany (259 thousand). On the other hand, the remarkable 
success is probably the fact that Poland managed to overtake the 
economies of Spain (244 thousand) and the UK (234 thousand) 
with its number of new entrants. The smallest increment of new 
economic entities in 2011 is noted for Bulgaria (35 thousand), 
Lithuania (31 thousand) and Belgium (fewer than 30 thousand). 
The analysis should also cover the number of liquidated entities 
in the EU - which are presented in chart 3. The first conclusion 
to be drawn when interpreting the chart below is that the largest 
number of liquidated entities in the analyzed year was reported 
by Italy - 304 thousand, and Spain - 289 thousand. In these two 
countries, the number of liquidated entities was higher than the 
one of the newly established. Germany, with the number of 247 
thousand, and Poland, 243 thousand, followed, then Portugal, the 
United Kingdom and France. In the middle of the classification 
were the Czechs and the Dutch, and to close the pack: 
Bulgarians - 39 thousand, Swedes - 38 thousand, Romanians - 35 
thousand and Belgians - only 18 thousand. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chart 3 Number of newly established and liquidated enterprises 
in Poland and selected EU countries in 2011 (in thousand) 

 

Source: Report on the state of the sector of small and medium-
sized enterprises in Poland in the years 2012-2013, PARP, 
Warsaw 2014, p. 21

 

 
However, when analyzing the individual situation of individual 
EU countries in terms of the greatest difference between the 
number of newly established entities and the number of the 
liquidated it should be noted that in this regard France has the 
best performance with the difference in question of 135 thousand 
entities in favor of the emerging ones. On the other hand, 
Portugal found itself in a diametrically different situation in 
2011 with up to nearly 100 thousand recorded liquidations over 
the emerging ones. The relatively smallest difference of these 
two indicators refers to Poland - (4 thousand) and Slovakia - 
(only 1 thousand). 
 
1.3 The number of people working in enterprises in selected 
EU countries 
 
The indicator characterizing the European corporate sector is the 
number of people working in it – as presented in chart 4. The 
number of people working in this kind of entities in 2012 stood 
at 133 million people [Eurostat data for 2012]. The largest 
contribution to the employment rate was held by the most 
numerous in terms of population EU countries. These are mainly 
five European economies: German (more than 26 million 
working in enterprises), British (about 18 million), French (15 
million), Italian (15 million) and Spanish (almost 11 million).  
It is worth noting that the results of these five countries account 
for less than 2/3 of the total number of persons employed in the 
EU -28. Poland, which occupies sixth position, ranks just behind 
this group of countries. Its employment rate outnumbers 
countries such as The Netherlands, Romania and the Czech 
Republic. Subsequently, there go Sweden and Portugal. At the 
end of the classification there are 16 EU countries, mostly 
considered small in terms of population as well as the number of 
the employed. It is therefore necessary to mention e.g. Belgium, 
Hungary, Ireland, Slovenia, Estonia, Luxembourg and Cyprus. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- page 13 -