Overview

• The projected increase marks a sharp slowdown from 2024, when failures jumped 18% versus 2023.
• About 245,000 jobs are considered at risk in 2025, an 8% decline from last year’s tally.
• Construction and transport account for 23% of threatened jobs even though they represent 16% of overall employment.
• Failure rates are higher for larger firms, reaching 1.4% for mid-sized companies and 2.3% for businesses with 10 to 49 employees, with SMEs and ETIs averaging 2.1%.
• Since 2015, total failures are up 9%, driven by steep increases for ETIs (+94%) and SMEs (+50%) compared with microenterprises (+6%).