Dinâmica de criação e extinção de empresas durante a pandemia de Covid-19: um estudo exploratório das microempresas de Santa Maria/RS

Abstract

This paper aims to know the dynamic of creation and extinction of companies in the municipality of Santa Maria, Central Region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Through it we try to observe the number of active, extinct and incorporated companies during the years of 2018 to 2021, focusing on micro companies in the municipality and on the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two years prior to the pandemic are also analyzed in order to compare. In order to know about company size and the chosen time period, a documentary and bibliographical research was conducted, mostly on laws and decrees, as well as the use of secondary data made available by the Trade, Industry and Services Board of Rio Grande do Sul. The data was analyzed and synthesized by the number of active companies in the municipality separated by size (micro company, small company and regular sized company) sector and legal type (trade, services and industry; EIRELI, entrepreneur and Ltd.), as well as the comparison of the number of extinctions and incorporations of companies in the time frame, and the evolution of incorporation and extinction of companies separated by size. Surprisingly, the companies in the municipality were growing. In the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 the opening of companies was higher than the closing of them. Only in the year of 2018 less companies were opened and by a small margin more companies were shut down in the municipality. Our initial hypothesis that more companies were closing in comparison to the number of company openings did not sustain. Thus, we move on to our second question: what kind of companies are being opened? The increase in companies is due mostly to the micro companies. Our second hypothesis is that the choice for a micro company occurs mostly for the ease and advantages both in the opening of it and in maintaining it, as well as the great number of the unemployed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.