Entrepreneurship indicators of Canadian enterprises, 2021
Released: 2023-11-06
In 2021, there were 1,181,920 active enterprises in Canada with one or more employees, and two-thirds had four employees or fewer. There were 100,780 births of enterprises in 2021 and 99,660 deaths of enterprises in 2020.
These indicators are part of the Entrepreneurship Indicators Database program, which is available upon request for the 2021 reference period. The Entrepreneurship Indicators Database program provides data that describe the entrepreneurial dynamics of Canadian enterprises.
Indicators include the number of active enterprises, the number of enterprise births and deaths and their corresponding jobs, the survival of newly created enterprises, and the number of high-growth enterprises and gazelles. Active enterprises include all enterprises with at least one employee.
In 2021, Canada had 6,160 high-growth enterprises by employment and 14,070 high-growth enterprises by revenue. The construction sector posted the largest number of high-growth enterprises by employment (15.6%) and by revenue (16.5%).
Small businesses account for the majority of enterprise births and deaths
Of all enterprises that died in 2020, more than 8 in 10 (83.6%) were small enterprises, defined in this report as enterprises with one to four employees. Most of the deaths were in the professional, scientific and technical services sector, which accounted for 16.0% of all deaths.
However, small enterprises were also the driving force behind enterprise births. Of the 100,780 new enterprises that were created in 2021, 85.4% were small firms with one to four employees.
The professional, scientific and technical services sector also had the most enterprise births, accounting for 17.3% of all births of active enterprises in 2021.
Over 7 in 10 enterprises created in 2020 survive during their first year
Among new enterprises with at least one employee in 2020, the survival rate in 2021 was 85.6%. Among those that were born in 2019, 70.2% were still active in 2021.
Note to readers
Entrepreneurship indicators are produced nationally, by province and territory, by industry, and by enterprise size.
The Entrepreneurship Indicators Database contains an up-to-date and unduplicated count of enterprises in Canada, based on the Statistics Canada's Business Register and on concepts and definitions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Because year-over-year variations in entrepreneurship indicators or employee counts may represent changes in methodology in the source data rather than economic changes, comparisons with previous releases should be made with caution.
Data access
The tables are available upon request.
The birth of an employer enterprise is a new enterprise that has at least one employee in the birth year or an enterprise that was present before the year in consideration, but below the threshold of one employee. Reactivations are excluded from the population of employer enterprise births. Births do not include entries into the population as a result of a merger, break-up, spin-off or restructuring of a set of enterprises.
The death of an employer enterprise is an enterprise with at least one employee in the year of the death that stops being present or an enterprise that moves below the threshold of one employee for at least two years. Deaths do not include exits from the population as a result of mergers, break-ups, dissolutions or restructuring, and enterprises that are reactivated in the next two years are excluded from the population of enterprise deaths.
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 with at least 10 employees at the beginning of the observation period.
Gazelles represent the youngest of high-growth enterprises (i.e., are up to 5 years old).
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; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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