More than half of the entrepreneurs (56 percent) see price increases as the most worrying development for their company in the coming year. This has emerged from a survey for Statistics Netherlands (CBS) among companies with more than five employees that do not belong to the financial sector. Last year it was 44 percent.
More than half of the more than five thousand entrepreneurs surveyed say that it is hardly possible or not at all possible to transfer their operating costs, which have mainly increased due to the more expensive energy and raw materials, to customers. 6 percent pass the price increases on to consumers in full, and more than 40 percent largely do so.
Whether the costs can be passed on differs greatly per sector. Almost a quarter of the entrepreneurs who rent out or trade in premises say that they absorb price increases entirely themselves, the highest percentage of all sectors. However, last year half of the real estate companies did not pass on their increased costs to consumers. Around a fifth of the companies in the agricultural and cultural sectors also say that they cannot pass on costs.