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In signs of persisting financial woes in the US, the count of bankruptcy filings jumped as much as 20 per cent to 1.57 million in the year ended June 2010, the highest in four years.

The number of businesses going bankrupt climbed eight per cent to 59,608 during the same period, despite signs of economic recovery.

“A total of 1,572,597 bankruptcy cases were filed in federal courts in that period (year ended June 30, 2010), compared to 1,306,315 bankruptcy cases filed in the 12-month period ending June 30, 2009,” according to the latest data available with the Administrative Office of the US Courts.

Interestingly, these figures come in the backdrop of many big US corporates having good financial performance this year.

Moreover, the bankruptcy filings are the highest since 2006 when the number stood at 1.48 million.

After remaining below the one-million mark in 2007 and 2008, the bankruptcy filings shot up last year at 1.31 million.

Going by the official data, business bankruptcy filings rose eight per cent in the year ended June 2010 to 59,608 as against 55,021 in the comparable period.

“Non-business filings for the 12-month period ending June 30, 2010 totalled 1,512,989, up 21 percent compared to the 1,251,294 non-business filings for June 30, 2009,” the Administrative Office said in a recent statement.

At the height of the financial crisis in 2008-09, many corporate giants such as General Motors and Chrysler had entered bankruptcy restructuring. The financial meltdown became worse after the bankruptcy of then Wall Street major Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Meanwhile, the national economy is not fully out of the woods, despite stimulus packages running into billions of dollars. With unemployment rate hovering at 9.5 per cent and claims for jobless benefits on the rise, there are even fears of severe economic slowdown in coming months.

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This post was submitted by Chinmaya Nayak.