Facts, figures, trends & expectations for the future The close to 65,000 enterprises affiliated to CICOPA member organizations, 95% of them being SMEs, employ over 3 million people. However, there is evidence that this world phenomenon is quantitatively much wider: worker cooperatives, social cooperatives and cooperatives of self-employed producers in industry and services together employ over 16 million people worldwide.
The vast majority of these persons are members and, therefore, the owners of their enterprise, which they jointly and democratically control. The report contains:
-* Detailed statistics per continent
-* Thorough information per sector of activity
-* The latest trends in a cross-country observation
-* Main difficulties and measures put in place per country Key findings Whilst a substantial portion of cooperatives active in industry and services are experiencing a very high growth rate in terms of both enterprise numbers and jobs, others are going through difficult times due to the economic or policy environment in which they find themselves.
The most common difficulties faced are access to finance, lack of a proper policy environment, reductions in public deficits, unfair competition and technical weaknesses. 700 cooperative groups have been reported throughout the world acting with the logic of inter-cooperation. These groups are fundamental to the development of the cooperatives and the implementation of their key mission, which is mainly related to employment creation and sustainability, contribution to the general interest, wealth creation and local development. Download it.
