Economic and Social Reports, March 2021

Released: 2021-03-24

The March 2021 issue of Economic and Social Reports contains five articles.

Two articles use the new experimental series on monthly business openings and closures to provide a more in-depth picture of the effect of the pandemic on businesses and employment.

The results presented in the article "Characteristics of businesses that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020" show that the 12% of active employer businesses that closed from February to September 2020 and remained closed as of November 2020 had characteristics that suggest that they were less ready to weather the impact of the pandemic. These businesses tended to be smaller and younger, have more debt, have less liquidity, and be less profitable.

Compared with the businesses that closed early on in the pandemic, those that closed more recently were more likely to have been stronger heading into the pandemic. This suggests that even larger businesses with stronger financial characteristics could be at risk of closing as the pandemic continues.

Early job loss higher in businesses that stayed open

The majority of the job loss that occurred at the beginning of the pandemic was in continuing businesses, which posted employment declines of 70% and 82% in March and April 2020, respectively. This is one of the findings of the article "Changes in employment by businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic: New insights on the experimental series of monthly business openings and closures."

The nearly two million jobs lost in March and April 2020 combined were more than three times the employment declines attributable to business closures, which were just over 500,000. The scaling back of operations by continuing businesses may be related to a combination of factors, including reduced demand, the need for physical distancing measures in the workplace and supply chain disruptions.

Continuing businesses contributed the most to employment growth from June to August 2020. Businesses that re-opened contributed to 18% of the employment growth observed in June and July and 32% in August.

Economic recovery in early 2021 

The tighter COVID-19 containment measures that came into effect in late 2020 and early 2021 affected the pace of economic recovery. The article "Recent developments in the Canadian economy: Assessing the economic recovery from COVID-19" provides an integrated analysis of recent changes in output, consumer spending, business investment and international trade, and draws on recent releases based on new data sources that offer insights into the financial conditions facing businesses and households.

A useful labour market indicator

The article in "Spotlight on data and research" this month highlights "One useful labour market indicator." It describes and demonstrates the usefulness of a single indicator—the percentage of the population employed in a paid job that is both full time and permanent—that combines several aspects of the labour market, including the unemployment rate, labour force participation rate, self-employment rate, and specific aspects of job quality such as whether paid jobs are full time or permanent.

Negative effects of social media

Finally, the article "Canadians' assessments of social media in their lives" is also available.

Products

The March 2021 issue of Economic and Social Reports, Vol. 1, no. 3 (36-28-0001) is now available. This issue contains the articles "One useful labour market indicator," "Changes in employment by businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic: New insights on the experimental series of monthly business openings and closures," "Characteristics of businesses that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020," "Recent developments in the Canadian economy: Assessing the economic recovery from COVID-19" and "Canadians' assessments of social media in their lives."

Also released today is an infographic titled "Canadians' reported experiences using social media, 2018/2019," which is available as part of the series Statistics Canada – Infographics (Catalogue number11-627-M).

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).