Entrepreneurship indicators of Canadian enterprises, 2017
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Released: 2019-11-13
The entrepreneurship indicators for the reference year 2017 are now available upon request.
The Canadian enterprise entrepreneurship indicator program was created to meet the economic challenges associated with policies on entrepreneurship in Canada, the provinces and territories.
The entrepreneurship indicator program provides data describing the dynamics of a subset of Canadian enterprises, such as the number of active enterprises with one or more employees; the number of births and deaths of active enterprises with one or more employees; the number of jobs associated with enterprise births and deaths; the survival of newly created enterprises; and the number of high-growth enterprises and gazelles.
Highlights
In 2017, there were 1,114,740 active enterprises in Canada with one or more employees. Of those, 64.6% had four employees or less.
Small enterprises, with one to four employees, are those contributing the most to the births and deaths of enterprises.
The professional, scientific and technical services sector had the most enterprise deaths and births.
The information and cultural industries sector had the highest percentage of high-growth enterprises by employment and revenue.
Ontario (37.6%) and Quebec (20.5%) had the highest proportion of active enterprises in Canada with one or more employees.
Births and deaths of enterprises with one or more employees
In 2017, of a total of 1,114,740 active enterprises with one or more employees in Canada, there were 78,300 births and 96,540 deaths.
It was mostly small active enterprises with one to four employees that contributed to the enterprise dynamics: enterprises with one to four employees accounted for 82.4% of all deaths. Enterprises with one to four employees accounted for 83.1% of all births.
The professional, scientific and technical services sector had the most enterprise deaths and births, representing 16.8% of all deaths and 17.4% of all births of active enterprises with one or more employees.
Survival of enterprises with one or more employees
Among the 81,630 newborn enterprises with one or more employees in 2016, 77,760 survived one year (from 2016 to 2017), and among the 82,480 newborn enterprises with one or more employees in 2015, 67,880 survived two years (from 2015 to 2017).
High-growth enterprises and gazelles by employment
In 2017, of all active enterprises with 10 or more employees, high-growth enterprises by the number of employees accounted for 3.2% and gazelles accounted for 0.6%. The information and cultural industries sector had the highest percentage of high-growth enterprises by employment (6.9%), followed by the mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction sector (5.4%) and the administrative and support, waste management and remediation services sector (5.1%). British Columbia was the province with the highest percentage of high-growth enterprises by number of employees (4.1%).
High-growth enterprises and gazelles by revenue
In 2017, of all active businesses with 10 or more employees, high-growth enterprises by revenue represented 5.5% and gazelles represented 0.9%. The information and cultural industries sector had the largest percentage of high-growth enterprises by revenue (10.6%), followed by the construction sector (8.6%) and the manufacturing sector (8.3%). British Columbia was the province with the highest percentage of high-growth enterprises by revenue (6.9%).
Note to readers
The Entrepreneurship Indicators Database contains an up-to-date and unduplicated count of enterprises in Canada, based on Statistics Canada's Business Register, as well as concepts and definitions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Eurostat.
Entrepreneurship indicators are produced nationally and provincially by industry and by enterprise-size group.
Data access
The tables are available upon request.
Data definitions
High-growth enterprises, by employment (or revenue), are enterprises with an average annual growth in the number of employees (or revenue) greater than 20% over a three-year period and which have at least 10 employees at the beginning of the observation period.
Gazelles are the subgroup of high-growth enterprises which are up to five years old.
Notes
A comparison with previous releases should to be done with caution. Year-to-year variations in enterprise counts or employee counts may represent changes in methodology in the source data rather than economic changes.
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).
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