Business Dynamics in the Netherlands 2020: The First Phase of the COVID-19 Crisis

This paper analyses business dynamics in the Netherlands in 2020, including the first phase of the COVID-19 crisis. Even though the number of bankruptcies is historically low, the number of firm exits is historically high. Despite the crisis, the number of new firms has been increasing in 2020, and arrived at a historical high level. There is an acceleration of the growth trend of new online (and related) business. We analyze business dynamics with monthly and quarterly data, which provides a more granular picture than the yearly business dynamics data.