Since the beginning of the year, over 700 companies, mainly sole proprietorships, have left the taxi market, and over three thousand more have been suspended. The condition of the industry is terrible, and the forecasts are not optimistic – reports Monday’s “Rzeczpospolita”.
As we read in the Monday edition of the newspaper, the traditional taxi driver is a profession that is going down in history. After three quarters of 2023, less than 51,000 were registered on the Vistula River. activities of this type, which means that nearly 5,000 have disappeared since the outbreak of the pandemic. companies. Due to the specificity of the industry, it is mainly about: sole proprietorshipsalthough taxi corporations are consistently closing their operations.
Very bad situation for taxi drivers
According to the latest data from the business intelligence agency Dun & Bradstreet (DnB), published by “Rzeczpospolita”, in total from January to the end of September this year. over 700 entities of this type disappeared, and as many as 3,076 companies appeared on the list of suspended activities, i.e. 30 percent more than in 2022
“Experts warn that the situation of traditional taxi drivers is terrible. As many as 85 percent of the surveyed companies are in poor or very bad financial condition,” we read in Rz. Citing DnB analyses, the newspaper reported that there are practically no business owners in this industry who claim that their condition is good (the percentage reaches 0.05%).
As reported, the dynamics of closing taxi businesses may be worrying. Although this phenomenon accelerated during the pandemic, the trend has been visible for several years.
Possible historic decline
As Tomasz Starzyk, a DnB analyst quoted by the newspaper, emphasizes, if the trend continues next year, in the fall of 2024 the number of taxi companies in Poland will drop – for the first time in history – below 50,000. “This would mean that over the last 15 years the taxi transport market in our country has shrunk by over 20,000 registered entities. And to this number we should add over 3,000 suspended companies. And this is only in the first three quarters of this year.” – he pointed.
He added that this statistic places the taxi sector in the top ten industries where the largest number of suspended companies is recorded (this group includes entities from the hotel and restaurant industries).
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