Despite the health crisis, France recorded 848,200 business start-ups in 2020, as revealed by Insee. An all-time high, but one that should not mask a more mixed reality.
Micro-businesses lead the way in business start-ups
If the number of business start-ups reached a record high in 2020, it was mainly due to the increase in the number of micro-businesses. These account for 65% of all businesses created in 2020, and now number 547,000, 45,900 more than in 2019.
On the other hand,company creations, which are generally businesses corresponding to larger-scale projects, stagnated in 2020, something that hadn't happened since 2013. Moreover, growth in business start-ups was still lower in 2020 than in previous years: while their number had risen by 17% in 2018 and 18% in 2019, the increase was just 4% in 2020.
Micro-enterprises are attractive for their ease of creation and management, and even more so since the sales ceiling more than doubled in 2018, rising to 176,200 euros for the sale of goods and 72,500 euros for the sale of services, compared with 82,800 euros and 33,200 euros before 2018.
The rise of home delivery
The home delivery sector recorded the highest number of business start-ups in 2020, with an additional 25,300 micro-businesses. In reality, the rise in business start-ups conceals a certain degree of casualization, known in the United States as the "gig economy ", with an increase in the number of micro-entrepreneurs working for platforms such as Uber Eats or Deliveroo.
Faced with the need to create their own jobs, many micro-entrepreneurs opt for this status, despite the low remuneration - 470 euros per month on average- which is also explained by the fact that they have to combine it with a second, sometimes salaried, activity.
Other sectors also saw an increase in business start-ups, such as real estate, with 2,500 new real estate agencies, and distance selling, with a 60% rise in new businesses in one year.