Some 394 North American jewelry businesses closed their doors in the first half of 2022, a 56% jump from the first half of 2021, according to the regular statistics issued by the Jewelers Board of Trade (JBT).
That represents a change from the recent trend of JBT reports, which have generally shown business discontinuances slowing down.
The discontinuances in the first six months of the year include 316 retailers, 47 wholesalers, and 31 manufacturers. JBT defines a discontinuance as when a company ceases operations, is merged or acquired, or files for bankruptcy.
Just about all of those 394 discontinuances were in the United States, but 14 were in Canada.
The news wasn’t all bad—in fact, even though a lot of businesses left the industry, a healthy number of new businesses came in.
In the first half of 2022, JBT recorded 296 new jewelry businesses in North America—a stunning 83% increase over the prior year. That number breaks down to 213 retailers, 56 wholesalers, and 27 manufacturers.
Overall, JBT listed 25,112 North American jewelry businesses in its database at mid-2022 (23,796 in the United States, 1,316 in Canada), a nominal 1.8% drop from the prior year’s number of 25,578. That breaks down to 19,029 retailers (U.S. number: 18,059), 3,642 wholesalers (U.S. number: 3,424), and 2,441 manufacturers (U.S. number: 2,313).
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