Lower turnover, higher value

Lower turnover, higher value

Macedonian firms today sell less in real terms than in 2022, but they create more value. That is the main finding of the analysis of all commercial companies in the country for the period 2022–2025.

1. 1

   Lower turnover, higher value. The same firms have 9.1% higher turnover than in 2022, but after adjusting for inflation that is 7.4% less. The value they actually create – employees' wages and operating profit – grew 14.0% in real terms, more than the economy as a whole (10.2%); part of the difference arises because we track the firms that survived all four years.

2. 2

   The improvement is not for everyone. In aggregate, firms earn more on every denar of sales, but the improvement comes from the larger firms. The typical firm is no more profitable than in 2022, and the share of loss-making firms rose from 22.7% to 24.4%.

3. 3

   Wages are growing faster than productivity. Of every 100 denars of value that firms create, 54 denars now go to wages, compared with 51 in 2022. Further wage growth must come from higher productivity.

4. 4

   People are moving to where they create more. Only the most productive quarter of firms employed more people in aggregate (+6.7%). At 512 high-growth firms, the number of employees rose by 16,897, even though the total number of employees in firms with 10 or more employees declined.

5. 5

   Quality lies in knowledge. The best combination of growth, profitability, financial health and exports is found in programming, business, consulting, engineering and accounting services, logistics and part of specialized manufacturing. Among the weakest are apparel, leather and footwear, and wood and furniture.

6. 6

   Risk is concentrated and visible. The accounts of 16,116 entities were blocked at least once in 2025, and 1,649 entities were on every one of the 12 monthly tax-debtor lists. Firms that close show signs of weakness even before they do.

What we measure and how

The analysis covers all commercial companies in the country – 63,095 active firms in 2025, with 2,256 billion denars in revenue and 370,362 employees.

The analysis includes limited liability companies (DOO and DOOEL), joint-stock companies (AD), other commercial companies and sole proprietors – all those that had revenue in the year. We linked the annual accounts for 2022–2025 to each firm's credit rating, exports, account blockages, tax debts and public procurement. Firm data are from Biznis Mreza, while macroeconomic data and projections are from the State Statistical Office (SSO), the IMF, the World Bank, the European Commission and Eurostat.

Why we measure growth on the same 42,936 firms

Imagine you want to know how much the children in a class have grown. If you measure 25 children at the start of the year and 28 at the end – some of whom are new – the average will change partly because of which children are in the class, not only because of how much they have grown. That is why you measure the same children.

The same applies to firms. The annual databases of financial statements are not always equally complete: in some years, some of the firms that were operating are missing. If total amounts were compared across years, the “growth” would also include firms entering or leaving the database. That is why we measure growth on the 42,936 commercial companies that have revenue in all four years. They account for 94–96% of revenue and about 90% of employees in the business sector, so they faithfully reflect its movement. This is a standard approach in analyses by central banks and the OECD.

We measure the value created by firms for 36,826 of them – the firms outside the financial sector that have employees and reported wages in all four years. They account for 96% of the group's turnover.

Steady growth, an ever-tighter labor market

The economy grew 10.2% in real terms over three years. Inflation has eased, unemployment is falling every year, and wages are rising fast.

What marked the period

• Prices inflated the nominal picture. Nominal GDP grew 9.7% in 2023 and 8.1% in 2024, while prices (the GDP deflator) rose 6.9% and 4.2% (calculated from SSO data).
• The labor market is tightening. The number of employed people rose from 688,000 in 2023 to 705,000 in 2025. The minimum gross wage rose from 22,146 denars (start of 2022) to 36,037 (second half of 2025), and since the second half of 2026 it has been 38,507 denars (Eurostat).
• The external position is under pressure. The current account deficit widened again to 4.4% of GDP in 2025, and foreign direct investment fell from 6.6% to 1.5% of GDP (IMF).
• Credit is growing fast – 10.3% in 2024 and 13.0% in 2025 (IMF).
• Goods exports are stagnating. According to the SSO, they amounted to 8,300 million euros in 2022 and 8,008 million euros in 2025 (preliminary data).

Lower turnover, higher value

Firms' turnover is about 7% lower in real terms than in 2022, but the value they create grew 14% in real terms – more than the economy.

The same 36,826 firms had turnover of 1,899 billion denars in 2022 and 2,072 billion in 2025: 9.1% more in nominal terms, but 7.4% less after adjusting for inflation. Their value added rose from 321 to 427 billion denars – 32.9% in nominal terms, 14.0% in real terms. Out of every 100 denars of sales, firms now keep 21 denars for wages and operating profit, compared with 17 denars in 2022.

Why turnover and value are moving in different directions

In 2022, prices of energy, metals and raw materials were at record highs. That is why the turnover of firms that trade in or process them – energy firms, wholesalers, metallurgy – was also “inflated.” When prices fell, turnover fell too, even though the volume of business did not necessarily shrink. At energy firms alone, turnover is 60.5 billion denars lower than in 2022. For most other firms, this most likely meant cheaper raw materials, so a larger share of each sale stays with them.

The improvement is not for everyone

In aggregate, firms earn more on every denar of sales. But the improvement comes from the larger firms – the typical firm is no more profitable than in 2022.

Among the same firms (42,573, excluding the financial sector), the operating margin – how many denars of operating profit remain from 100 denars of sales – rose in aggregate from 8.1 to 9.6 denars. But the margin of the typical (median) firm fell from 5.7 to 5.3 denars, and the share of loss-making firms rose from 22.7% to 24.4%.

The aggregate margin is rising in every group – which means that firms with large turnover are improving. The typical micro firm, on the other hand, earns less than in 2022, and the share of loss-making firms is rising in all three groups. The gaps between firms are widening. At the same time, the typical firm covers its short-term liabilities more easily (current ratio 1.67 → 1.84) and is slightly less indebted (debt ratio 0.38 → 0.37) – firms are operating more cautiously.

Wages are growing faster than productivity

That is good for employees. But firms can sustain it in the long run only if productivity grows as well.

Productivity – how much value one employee creates in a year – rose 14.9% in real terms at the same firms from 2022 to 2025. The gross wage per employee, adjusted for inflation, rose 19.1%. Wages grew faster even when both are measured in current denars: +40.4% versus +33.8%.

The labor share – the part of the value created that goes to gross wages – rose from 51.0% in 2022 to 53.5% in 2025, peaking at 54.9% in 2024, the year with the largest real wage growth (+8.7%). Put simply: of every 100 denars that firms create, 54 denars now go to wages, compared with 51.

The average net wage in firms, according to their annual accounts, was 38,058 denars in 2025, compared with 27,434 in 2022 (+38.7%). That is lower than the SSO average (45,202 denars), which also covers public-sector employees. Wages are highest in information and communication (74,350 denars), mining (56,730) and energy (54,123), and lowest in education (28,927), accommodation and food service activities (27,124) and other service activities (25,297).

People are moving to where they create more

A small number of large firms carry a large share of the business sector, and employees are shifting toward the most productive firms.

Concentration. The 1,000 largest firms – 1.6% of all firms – account for 68% of turnover, 58% of value added, 41% of employees and 83% of exports.

The ten largest firms have 14% of turnover but only 2% of net profit. These are traders, energy firms and manufacturers of vehicle parts – with high turnover and thin margins, and one of them reports a large loss. For the same firms (a constant sample), the share of the 100 largest firms in turnover fell from 45% in 2022 to 40% in 2025.

The differences in productivity are huge. The typical firm creates 563 thousand denars of value per employee per year. The best 10% create over 1.77 million, and the weakest 10% under 171 thousand – ten times less. Even within the same industry, the gap is about ninefold.

This is the pattern expected in a healthy economy: when labor is limited, it shifts toward the firms that create more value and can pay more.

High-growth firms

Under the Eurostat and OECD definition, a high-growth firm is one with at least 10 employees whose number of employees grows by more than 10% a year on average over three years. Of the 4,968 firms that had 10 or more employees in 2022 (and were still operating in 2025), 512, or 10.3%, qualify. Their number of employees rose by 16,897, while total employment across the whole group fell by 8,039. Without their growth, the decline in the group would have been about three times larger.

An even more selective group consists of 187 small and medium firms whose revenue grows in real terms by more than 10% a year on average over three years, which have a net margin above 5% every year and a good credit rating (grade B or better), and which have neither an account blockage nor a tax debt. One third of them are exporters.

Where the value is, and where the quality is

The highest-quality industries are the knowledge-based ones – programming, business and engineering services – and part of specialized manufacturing. The weakest are the traditional labor-intensive industries.

Only four sectors show a real decline in value added: energy, where 2022 was an exceptional year because of high prices; water supply and waste management; mining; and education. The fastest-growing are administrative and support services, accommodation and food service, and arts and entertainment.

Four groups of industries

We divided the 57 larger industries (those with at least 20 firms and a billion denars in revenue) according to two questions: whether they create more value per employee than the typical industry, and whether their value added is growing faster than that of the typical industry (the typical industry: 1.19 million denars per employee and 14% real growth over three years).

Quality index

For each of the 57 industries, we calculated an index from 0 to 100 that combines 16 indicators in six areas: growth (25%), profitability (20%), financial health and credit rating (20%), productivity and wages (15%), resilience – losses, account blockages, tax debts (10%) – and exports (10%). The index is relative: 100 means the best among Macedonian industries, not “perfect.” With equal weights for the six areas, the ranking is almost the same.

Concentrated, but with more and more participants

Exports are driven by a small number of large manufacturers, but the number of exporters is growing and dependence on the largest ones is declining.

In 2025, firms earned 522.5 billion denars in revenue from foreign markets – from goods and services – which is 23% of their revenue. There are 6,422 exporting firms. Among the same firms, the number of exporters rose from 5,049 in 2022 to 5,212 in 2025, while the share of the 10 largest exporters in total exports fell from 49% to 41%, partly because of lower exports by the largest manufacturers of vehicle parts and metals.

Exporters are more profitable and pay more. The typical net margin of exporters is 5.0%, compared with 2.5% for other firms; the average net wage is 47,060 versus 32,337 denars. The gap also exists among small firms and persists in all four years. The data do not show whether exporting makes firms better or whether better firms export more often – but the link is strong.

The Southwest and Polog regions are growing fastest

Value added is growing fastest in the Southwest and Polog regions – mainly because their firms are growing faster than the same industries in the rest of the country.

We split each region's growth into two parts. The first comes from which industries the region has: if it has many industries that are growing fast nationwide, it will also grow fast. The second – the own (regional) effect – shows how much faster or slower the region's firms are growing than the same industries nationwide. It shows what is happening within the region itself. The East, Vardar and Northeast regions are lagging behind and, together with the Southeast, are losing jobs.

Financial health: risk is concentrated and visible

Financial problems are concentrated in a small number of chronically weak firms and can often be spotted in advance.

Chronically unprofitable firms. A total of 3,519 firms have had zero or negative operating profit three years in a row (2023–2025) – that is 8.4% of the firms that had employees in all three years. They employ about 12,900 people, 3.7 per firm on average. Among sectors with at least 200 firms, they are most common in energy (21% of the firms in the sector), trade (11%), arts and entertainment (11%) and agriculture (11%).

Credit ratings are improving. Among active firms with a credit rating, the share of those with the lowest grade (F) fell from 26.9% in 2022 to 23.2% in 2025. Of the firms rated in both 2022 and 2025, 42% received a better grade and 32% a worse one.

Account blockages. In 2025, the accounts of 16,116 entities (of which 14,224 are business-sector firms) were blocked at least once – 58,778 blockages in total. As of October 6, 2026, 7,277 of these entities were still blocked, typically for 575 days already. Accounts that were unblocked had typically been blocked for only 13 days.

Among firms with the best grade (A), 3 in 100 were blocked; among those with the worst (F), almost 23 in 100. Still, two thirds of the blocked firms did not have the worst grade. That is why a credit rating is a good first filter, but it is no substitute for monitoring payments.

Tax debtors. In 2025, the monthly Public Revenue Office (UJP) tax-debtor list contained between 1,944 and 2,049 debtors and between 10.7 and 12.4 billion denars of debt; three quarters of the debt relates to VAT. The list barely changes: 1,649 entities appeared on every one of the 12 releases, and the ten largest debtors account for 30% of the debt.

The state as a buyer

The state is a major buyer – over 100 billion denars in contracts in 2025 – and the money is concentrated among a small number of suppliers.

In 2025, 30,698 public procurement contracts worth 100.1 billion denars were published, involving 3,465 suppliers and 1,114 contracting authorities. Two thirds of the value (68%) was awarded through the open procedure, and a further 23% through the simplified open procedure.

Concentration. The ten largest suppliers received 25% of the value, and the 100 largest received 61%. Among the 168 contracting authorities that procured more than 100 million denars' worth, the largest supplier received more than 26% of the value at half of them, and more than half of the value at 17% of them.

Dependence on the state. Construction is the most dependent on public money: the 2025 contracts equal one quarter of construction firms' annual revenue. For the typical supplier, the 2025 contracts amount to 21.9% of its annual revenue.

Suppliers in financial difficulty. Less than 1% of the value of contracts signed in 2025 (between 578 and 697 million denars, i.e. 0.6–0.7%) went to suppliers that, on the day the contract was signed, had a blocked account or were on the tax-debtor list. The amount is small, but it shows that there is room for automatic checks in the procedures.¹

Suppliers to the state are larger and financially healthier than other firms: the typical supplier has a turnover of 17.6 million denars (other firms: 1.8 million), and 7% of suppliers have an F grade, against 22% of other firms (shares of all firms, including those without a rating).

¹The range depends on whether contracts signed on the very day the account was blocked or unblocked are also counted. Source: Biznis Mreza (public procurement contracts 2025, account blockages, Public Revenue Office (UJP) lists).

Outlook 2026–2028

The baseline expectation is steady growth of around 3% a year. The value created by firms will most likely grow roughly in line with the economy.

How we forecast the value firms create

We tested five simple methods. For each one, we calculated how accurately it would have predicted the real value growth of the 57 larger industries in 2024 and 2025 had it used only data from the preceding years. The simplest method – that firms grow as fast as the economy – produced the smallest average error. Trends in individual industries do not continue predictably: an industry that grew fast one year will not necessarily grow fast the next.

Our baseline projection is therefore that firms' real value added will grow roughly in line with the economy: by around 9% in total over the three years 2026–2028 according to the IMF and World Bank projections, or 12.5% according to the Government.

Main risks

• Weak growth in the euro area. According to the European Commission's spring forecast, the euro area – the main export market – is set to grow by 0.9% in 2026 and 1.2% in 2027, and Germany by 0.6% and 0.9%. Prolonged stagnation there would directly hit manufacturing exports.
• Energy prices. The analysis shows how strongly energy prices move turnover and margins; a new price shock could repeat the effect of 2022.
• Wages and micro firms. If wages keep growing faster than productivity, the profitability of the typical micro firm, which is already falling, will continue to weaken.
• Inflation. The IMF expects inflation to accelerate to 4.5% in 2026, which would reduce real wage growth.

Projections are not facts: they are based on four years of data and on official forecasts, and they do not include unforeseen shocks.

What this means

Six things worth remembering from the analysis – and what follows from them for business and for policymakers.

1. 1

   Firms create more value from every denar of sales. The real decline in turnover after 2022 is mainly a price effect; the real value firms create is growing faster than the economy.

2. 2

   The improvement is not for everyone. Larger firms are improving, the typical firm is stagnating, and the share of loss-making firms is rising.

3. 3

   Wages are growing faster than productivity. The next wave of wage growth has to come from productivity.

4. 4

   People are moving to the better firms. Only the most productive quarter of firms is employing more people, and high-growth firms are increasing their headcount.

5. 5

   Quality lies in knowledge and specialization, while traditional labor-intensive industries are losing out.

6. 6

   Risk is concentrated and visible – in chronically unprofitable firms, persistent tax debtors and long account blockages.

Methodology, terms and sources

© 2026 Biznis Mreza · Analysis prepared by the Biznis Mreza Analytics Team, specially for Business Leader 2026 · October 2026 · biznismreza.mk