50-year-old South African engineering company forced to close its doors

South African engineering firm Fischer Housing & Engineering has all but ceased operations in the country, with its workforce gutted and little to no hope of recovery.

The group started out as a company of eight people when Fischer Engineering was established as a small factory in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) in 1975.

A second company, called Fischer Housing, was registered later, in 2003.

It specialised in tooling and designing specialist machines, focused on South Africa’s then-burgeoning automotive industry.

The group told the SABC it experienced significant growth when it was founded, outgrowing its humble 400 square metre premises in its first two years of operations.

After moving to a larger 1,200 square metre lot, the company again outgrew its space as demand ramped up, finally moving to a 6,400 square metre factory on a 9,200 square metre property eight years later.

At its peak, the company employed more people. However, by the time it ceased operations, there were only five people on the books.

While the company enjoyed significant growth over the years, the sluggish economy over the last decade slowly killed the business, resulting in reduced demand, job losses, and now closure.

“By 2012, we employed 215 people, with our main customer base being the automotive industry. Unfortunately, most of our customers decided to replace the parts we supplied with imported goods,” the group said.

“That, in turn, forced the company to retrench our staff to where we have five people working here”

According to one of the remaining employees, the group ceased operating at the end of June 2025, but there is talk of finding part-time contracts that it hopes will keep it going until at least December.

However, the full shutdown appears inevitable.

The fate of a medium-sized business like Fischer Housing & Engineering is just one of many such businesses in South Africa that have suffered through decades of declining economic growth.

Unfortunately, the shutdown also heralds the fate of many more businesses to come as South Africa faces deep economic pressure from a 30% tariff on exports to the United States in August.

South African businesses under pressure

According to the latest data from Stats SA, 623 businesses have been liquidated in the first five months of the year. 85 of these have been compulsory (or forced) liquidations.

South Africa experiences over 1,500 business liquidations a year, with the figure being the lower end of the spectrum seen in 2024.

Stats SA’s data showed a peak in liquidations in 2019 and 2020 – amid the Covid-19 pandemic – where over 2,000 businesses shut their doors.

Since then, the numbers have been declining.

While this might read as economic conditions improving—and thus fewer businesses going into liquidation—legal experts say that the data needs to be taken in context of wider economic data.

With South Africa barely scraping by with sub-1% GDP growth on average over the past decade, the more likely reading of the data is that there are simply fewer businesses in operation.

Looking at compulsory liquidations specifically, which often point to distress, these figures have been at similar levels each year since 2019.

Unfortunately, the situation risks getting worse in 2025, with another year of sub-1% growth projected.

Critical industries, like agriculture, automotive manufacturing and steel, also face added pressure due to the global tariff war and the looming 30% export tariff from the United States.

These industries have already sounded the alarm on what these tariffs will do to local operations, with tens of thousands of jobs on the line.

Should the tariffs follow through, it is likely that the fate of Fischer Housing & Engineering will be the fate of many other businesses trying to keep afloat in South Africa.