NSO Malta | Business Demography: 2023

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Business Demography: 2023

NR227/2024

Release Date: 28 November 2024

Cut-off Date: 30 September 2024

Provisional data for 2023 indicates that there were 56,358 active enterprises, with a corresponding employment of 252,021 persons.
Enterprises in the wholesale and retail trade (G); professional, scientific and technical activities (M) and construction (F) covered 42.2 per cent of total enterprises and supported 33.5 per cent of jobs.
In 2023, 71.8 per cent of active enterprises were sole proprietors and partnerships while 27.8 per cent were limited liability companies and plc.
Provisional figures indicate that there were 19,487 employer enterprises in Malta in 2023.

Business Demography: 2023

NR227/2024

Release Date: 28 November 2024

Cut-off Date: 30 September 2024

Provisional figures for 2023 indicate that there were 56,358 active enterprises in Malta, supporting an employment of 252,021 persons.

This news release is compiled using the statistical unit ‘enterprise’. An enterprise may consist of one or more legal business units, producing goods or services, which has a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making (Methodological Note 6). Provisional figures for 2023 show that there were 56,358 active enterprises in Malta, an increase of 4.9 per cent, or 2,616 active enterprises, over 2022.

The Wholesale, retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles sector (section G) accounted for 17.6 per cent of the active enterprises; Professional, scientific and technical activities (section M) accounted for 14.4 per cent, whilst construction (section F) accounted for 10.2 per cent (Table 1, Chart 1).

Compared to the situation a year earlier, micro enterprises employing between 0 and 9 persons increased by 4.6 per cent, while small enterprises employing between 10 and 49 persons, increased by 9.4 per cent. Medium-sized enterprises employing between 50 and 249 persons increased by 7.1 per cent. Enterprises employing more than 250 persons increased by 9.2 per cent (Table 1, Chart 2).

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Chart 2. Enterprises split by employment size class for 2023

In 2023, 71.8 per cent of the enterprises were sole proprietors and partnerships, 27.8 per cent were limited liability companies or public limited liability companies, while 0.4 per cent were cooperatives, corporations, branches or joint ventures (Chart 3, Table 2).

Provisional figures indicate that there were 19,487 employer enterprises in Malta in 2023, an increase of 7.0 per cent, over the previous year (Tables 3 and 4). In 2023, 55.8 per cent of the employer enterprises were limited liability companies or public limited liability companies, while 43.4 per cent were sole proprietors and partnerships (Chart 3).

In 2023, Wholesale and Retail Trade (Section G) accounted for 16.9 per cent of employment in Malta, Administrative and Support Services (Section N) accounted for 11.4 per cent, and Accommodation and Food Services (Section I) accounted for 10.1 per cent (Tables 5 and 6).

Chart 3. Enterprises and employer enterprises by type of legal organisation

Notes:
1. Data for 2023 is to be considered as provisional.
2. Employer enterprises refer to enterprises with more than one employee.

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Tables

Table 1. Structure of active enterprises by year, employment size and NACE

Table 2. Structure of active enterprises by year, type of legal organisation and NACE

Table 3. Structure of employer enterprises by year, employment size and NACE

Table 4. Structure of employer enterprises by year, type of legal organisation and NACE

Table 5. Employment structure by year, employment size and NACE

Table 6. Employment structure by year, type of legal organisation and NACE

All Tables

Methodological Notes

1. The Business Demography data is covered by Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics which came in force on 1st January 2021. It stipulates that business demography data is to be based on the concept of active enterprises in a reference year. Active enterprises had either turnover or employment at any time during the reference period.

2. The data is classified by economic activity according to the NACE (Nomenclature Statistique des Activités Économiques dans la Communauté Européenne) Rev.2 classification of economic activities in the European Union.

3. Other types of legal structures include public corporations, cooperatives, joint ventures and branches. Public corporations are all the government-controlled units that are often established by government as market producers principally engaged in the production of goods, non-financial and financial services, and as such they are classified in non-financial and financial sectors.

4. New business registrations are mainly identified through Value-added tax (VAT) registrations as well as through Malta Business Registry (MBR) new companies registrations.

5. Updates in the Statistical Business Register are ongoing and all figures reported are subject to revision. Data for 2023 are to be considered as provisional.

6. This news release includes a break in series, and as such, the data presented herein are not directly comparable to those in previous Business Demography News Releases. The break in series arises from a shift in the statistical unit used for data compilation. Whereas prior releases were based on active business units at legal unit level, the current data are derived using the enterprise as the statistical unit (refer to definition). This methodological change aligns with updated statistical standards and aims to provide a more comprehensive representation of the business economy. The below table highlights the percentage changes in figures that may be attributed to this methodological transition.

NACE Section	% Change in number of units	%Change in Employment
A	0.0	0.0
B	0.0	0.0
C	-1.6	-1.7
D	0.0	401.1
E	-2.3	0.0
F	-1.1	4.4
G	-1.3	4.2
H	-1.0	3.4
I	-0.9	2.5
J	-3.2	-4.1
K	-20.6	-6.8
L	-5.7	-0.7
M	-1.7	-9.2
N	-3.1	-10.2
P	-0.7	-0.9
Q	-0.6	0.6
R	-3.0	22.5
S	-0.1	-0.1
T	0.0	0.0
U	0.0	0.0
Total	-6.5	0.0

The smaller number of enterprises as compared to legal business units is a result of more than one legal unit forming an enterprise. The shifts in employment across NACE sections are attributed to the consolidation of legal units from various industries into an enterprise, resulting in the reclassification and redistribution of employment data across different NACEs. Overall, total employment levels remained unchanged.

7. More information relating to this news release may be accessed at:

Statistical Concepts
Metadata
Classifications

8. References to this news release are to be cited appropriately. For guidance on access and re-use of data please visit our dedicated webpage.

9. A detailed news release calendar is available online.

Definitions

The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organizational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise may consist of one or more legal units. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations (Figure 1).

Employment refers to persons employed which is defined as the total number of persons who work in the observation unit (inclusive of working proprietors, partners working regularly in the unit and unpaid family workers) as well as persons who work outside the unit who belong to it and are paid by it (e.g. sales representatives, delivery personnel, repair and maintenance teams). It excludes manpower supplied to the unit by other enterprises and persons carrying out repair and maintenance work in the enquiry unit on behalf of other enterprises.

A worker is considered to be an employee of a particular unit if he or she receives a wage or salary from the unit regardless of where the work is performed (even from remote locations). A worker from a temporary employment agency is considered to be the agency’s employee and not that of the business unit to which he or she is assigned.

Part-time workers, seasonal workers, persons on strike or on short-term leave are all considered employees, while volunteers or workers on long-term leave are excluded.

Employer enterprises refer to enterprises with more than one employee.

The following are the definitions of the employment size class breakdowns shown in Table 1, Table 3 and Table 5:

Size class	Persons employed
Micro	0-9
Small	10-49
Medium	50-249
Large	250+

The following are the definitions of the legal forms:

Sole ownership is defined as enterprises owned exclusively by one natural person.

Partnership is defined as an association of persons who conduct a business under a collective name.

Limited liability companies refer to enterprises comprising joint-stock companies, private limited companies.

Public corporations are all the government-controlled units that are often established by government as market producers principally engaged in the production of goods, non-financial and financial services, and as such they are classified in non-financial and financial sectors.

Cooperatives are bodies set down by law that observe a number of general principles; for example profits are often distributed in proportion to members’ dealings with the society.

Total Registered Business Units