{"id":728045,"date":"2026-01-29T07:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728045\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T07:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:08:15","slug":"business-distress-levels-in-northern-ireland-up-42-in-a-year-as-1100-firms-could-close-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728045\/","title":{"rendered":"Business distress levels in Northern Ireland up 42% in a year as 1,100 firms could close \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 1,100 business in Northern Ireland say they are at the \u2018critical\u2019 stage of distress, which means they are possibly within just months or even weeks of closing.<\/p>\n

The latest quarterly Red Flag Alert by independent business rescue and recovery specialist Begbies Traynor shows businesses displaying the most serious \u2018critical\u2019 levels of distress rose by 42% year on year from 776 to 1,102.<\/p>\n

And with the UK economy battling financial headwinds, the region also saw the UK\u2019s largest uplift in early instances of \u2018significant\u2019 financial distress – up by 14.6% year on year to 12,463 (from 10,873) compared to a UK average of 11.3%.<\/p>\n

Sectors with the highest rises in critical distress were automotive (up 143.8%), health and education (up 103%), and wholesale and industrial transportation (both up 100%).<\/p>\n

\"Belfast<\/a>\"Co<\/a><\/p>\n

Thomas McKay, managing partner for Begbies Traynor in Northern Ireland, said: \u201cMany regions of the UK saw rising distress that countered the usual seasonal norms for sectors that typically see their best months in the run up the Christmas. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this rise in early significant distress, which can predict trends in future quarters, is particularly worrying, especially here in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses here will have to make even more difficult choices in terms of shaving costs and being creative in finding new markets or products and services to grow revenues if these economic headwinds continue, which certainly looks likely for the coming few quarters.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"LawrenceLawrence O\u2019Hara, head of Begbies Traynor in Northern Ireland <\/p>\n

Lawrence O\u2019Hara, who leads Begbies Traynor in Northern Ireland, said: \u201cThere are very few signs that any sectors in the UK economy are improving in terms of business distress, with only five of 22 sectors seeing falling levels of critical distress since the previous quarter, largely seasonally driven, and some particularly hard hit including automotive, health and education which saw the highest rises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenges of inflation and mounting costs, coupled with reduced consumer spending that impacts most industries at a varying pace are going nowhere and global uncertainty doesn\u2019t help with long term positives such as investment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,100 business in Northern Ireland say they are at the \u2018critical\u2019 stage of distress, which means…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[110292,1700,1144,173713,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-728045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-begbies-traynor","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-red-flag","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115977132790811794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}