Hamburg is German stronghold of business founders

The city of Hamburg is the place were most potential business founders live in Germany. More than 10% of the inhabitants of Hamburg aged between 18 and 64 years plan to set up their own businesses over the next three years to come. Another 4% of inhabitants already did so over the past three and a half years. These figures are the findings of a recent study carried out jointly by the institute for research on the labour market (IAB) and the university of Hannover. However, it seems that Hamburg is just an exception in this respect in the north of Germany.

In Oldenburg, Duisburg or Dresden the number of potential business founders and young entrepreneurs is only half as big as in Hamburg. In general it is the south of Germany where the entrepreneurial spirit is particularly marked. In Munich and Frankfurt, for instance, particularly many people wish to start their own businesses.

In the Ruhr area, on the other hand, the number of potential business founders is below average. Labour market researchers believe that this is due to the business structure in this area. They think that in regions with companies which are in most cases big businesses the culture of self-employment is less developped than in regions with a high percentage of small and medium-sized entities.

The study also showed that the level of eduction is particularly important for setting up a new business. Highly qualified people are more often business founders than those not having these skills. In particular engineers and scientists like to become their own bosses. New high-tech companies set up by such people are important for the renewal of local know how given that new companies facilitate structural change and economic growth of a region. Therefore it is important to have more business founders and help them to put their plans into practice more easily.

The IAB study is available for free-of-charge download. GERMAN

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