U.S. business bankruptcy filings jumped 40 percent in May from a year ago as the sluggish U.S. economy pushed more businesses into the red, a bankruptcy data provider said on Tuesday.

Despite the extraordinary challenges small-business owners face in this downturn, the entrepreneurial spirit remains strong in America.

There were more bankruptcies in 2008 than at any time since 2005, with company filings rising 50 percent.

There were more bankruptcies in 2008 than at any time since 2005, when federal law made it tougher to file for bankruptcy. Over a million Americans filed for individual bankruptcy, up 32 percent, and company filings rose 50 percent to 64,318, according to numbers gathered by AACER, a service of Jupiter ESources LLC in Oklahoma City.

As the curtain falls on one of the most devastating financial years on record, business bankruptcies — both large and small — continue to soar.

The nearly 58,000 commercial bankruptcies filed nationwide through November of this year exceed the year-end totals of every year since Congress overhauled the bankruptcy laws in 2005, according to Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, an Oklahoma City bankruptcy data company.

The number of businesses that sought to liquidate under Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection rose 7% last month, indicating that the U.S. financial crisis is putting more struggling companies out of business.