EC Publishes the 2023/2024 Annual Report on European SMEs

The yearly report provides a summary of the size, structure, and significance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the European economy, along with an overview of their past performance and future projections.

SMEs have gone through significant challenges over the past years. This challenging economic context continues to put the brakes on EU SMEs’ potential. In 2023, persistent inflationary pressures threatened the economic stability of the 25.8 million SMEs in the EU-27. While some SMEs managed to pass price increases onto consumers, many others could not, resulting in a decline in their real value added. This led to an overall real terms decline in SME value added of -1.6% due to inflation rates.

The report indicates that SME employment rose by 1.8% in 2023, building on the notable 2.9% increase seen in 2022. Forecasts predict another year of growth in 2024, with an anticipated 0.8% rise in employment, marking three consecutive years of employment growth.

A longer-term analysis reveals some challenges for SME productivity. Although SME productivity has remained largely stable in absolute terms and is slightly higher in 2024 than it was in 2019, their productivity growth has consistently lagged behind that of larger enterprises. 

Read the full report: SME Performance Review Annual Report 2023/2024