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Spain has created fewer start-ups following COVID-19, and these emerging companies have half the capacity to create jobs compared to other European countries analyzed by the OECD

The Ivie and the OECD have begun a collaboration to analyze productivity and business dynamics in Spain through the DynEmp and Multiprod projects

The OECD has published reports on business dynamics in eight European countries that have joined the DynEmp project, which collects harmonized data to enable cross-country comparison. The aim of this initiative is to analyze the decline in business dynamics observed in recent decades in some countries, and to assess its impact on productivity, economic growth, inclusion, and even ecological transition. To this end, the OECD has partnered with independent entities in each country to gather and analyze the available data. The Ivie has been selected to provide the data for Spain. Other participating countries include Germany, Slovenia, Finland, France, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

According to the main results for Spain, the country is characterized by start-up creation rates (companies aged 0-2 years) that are close to the average, but declining. Before COVID-19, the proportion of start-ups in Spain was 11% in manufacturing and 18% in services. However, following the health crisis, there figures dropped by 3 percentage points in the weight of new businesses in manufacturing and 3.9 points in services. Placing Spain behind other countries, which recorded average declines of only 1.2 to 1.9 percentage points.

The survival rate of Spanish start-ups is similar to that of other European countries, but they experience lower growth after their creation, five-year survival rates are 55% in manufacturing and 44% in services in Spain, in line with international averages of 55% and 47%, respectively. However, the average employment growth of surviving companies during the first five years is only 67% in manufacturing and 36% in services, compared to approximately 100% and 77%, respectively, in the countries analyzed.

The OECD report highlights that the creation and growth of start-ups not only contribute to more competitive markets and long-term productivity growth, but also promote inclusive job creation, with smaller gender pay gaps and more opportunities for disadvantaged groups.