Thousands of firms born in the crisis were doomed from the start

Some 40,000 enterprises were born and died during Greece’s financial crisis, as attempts to find a way out of unemployment through entrepreneurship, out of necessity, has proven a very difficult and risky choice.

According to figures from the General Commercial Register seen by Kathimerini, the number of businesses that were established after January 1, 2012, and closed by December 31, 2017, came to 39,432, constituting about 20 percent of corporate shutdowns in that six-year period.

The biggest share of those doomed business ventures belongs to the sector of food service and cafes (6,225 enterprises or 15.7 percent), while in retail commerce, the number of companies that failed soon after opening came to 4,731.

The register’s data confirm that small and medium-sized ventures in Greece overwhelmingly tend to be fast food outlets, cafeterias and retail stores, or activities that tried to cash in on needs that emerged as a result of the crisis, such as the sale of firewood. Others tried to capitalize on the bubble of photovoltaic energy by installing them all over the country.

Notably, four in every five companies formed and dissolved in the 2012-2017 period were individually owned.