With his clients, Nicolas Waldorf continues to smile. However, he has never been as anxious about the future of his room as he is today. Nicolas Waldorf, known for having participated in television shows, confesses to BFMTV that he is on the verge of bankruptcy after having achieved some success.
Everything got worse in a few months, mainly due to inflation that reduced the number of clients. Demonstrations against the pension reform have also worsened the situation.
“They were three months to less than half of the objectives. At one point I ended up at -40,000 euros even before paying the salaries and then I told myself that I was starting to stink,” says Nicolas Waldorf, who has already fired five people , a third of its workforce.
Too much competition?
In the last twelve months, 953 hairdressing professionals have gone bankrupt, according to data from Altares, which represents an increase of 57.8% in one year. After the pause of the health crisis, the levels are returning to those observed in the sector before the pandemic: there were only 604 business bankruptcies in May 2022 for twelve consecutive months and 494 bankruptcies in May 2021, compared to 988 bankruptcies in a year in May 2019. The end of state-guaranteed loans partly explains the current difficulties of hairdressers, but they also suffer from too much competition on French soil.
For the president of Unec, today there are “too many” hairdressing salons in France. “The market needs to be regulated. It’s incredible: France, next to England, has three times as many hairdressing salons,” says Christophe Doré. In recent years, the number of hairdressing professionals has not stopped increasing, from 94,000 in 2021 to more than 100,000 today. Many in-home hairdressers in particular have created their own business: since 2020, no fewer than 8,000 in-home hairdressers have entered the market.
Source: BFM TV
