Analysis

Description: With the emergence of COVID-19, Canadian governments at all levels adopted policy initiatives to address the financial challenges faced by businesses. The policies were broad in both scope and variety and altogether represented billions of dollars in support.

This article examines these programs including the characteristics of recipients using preliminary data from the Canadian COVID-19 Business Support Measures Database (CCBSM), a standardized set of data covering government support programs for businesses.

Description:

This analysis is based on the Rural Canada Business Profiles (RCBP) which is a database built from business tax returns. With several breakdowns available along the theme of rural and urban areas, the RCBP version released by Statistics Canada on January 13, 2023, provides data for 2020. Future updates of the RCBP, expected to be produced on an annual basis, will add more recent years as fresh data become available. The RCBP could be a useful and timely analytical tool in efforts to gain insights on trends and transformations in the rural business environment just as the economy enters the post-pandemic period.

Description:

The infographic for active enterprises consists of all enterprises that had either revenue or employees at any time during the reference period.

Description:

This paper provides an update to the work of Abbes et al. (2022a) and to the Canadian Patent Research Database (CPRD). The CPRD was created to study patenting, an important indicator of innovative activity, at the micro level.

Description: In recent years, Statistics Canada has released data and analysis on business ownership by women and persons with disabilities. Furthermore, in an effort to continue to fill the information gap on business ownership by employment equity groups and better inform policy making, Statistics Canada has released, for the first time, time series on Indigenous-owned businesses by sex of ownership and other characteristics such as age of primary owner and province of operation.

Description:

Businesses are aiming to retain employees in order to keep up with increased supply and demand pressures. Based on the results of the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, most businesses were likely to expect obstacles regarding the retention of current staff as well as the recruitment of new staff in order to fill vacant positions they may be experiencing. Almost half of businesses foresee rising costs of inputs and labour to be an obstacle in addressing staffing challenges. This article provides insights on the topics of challenges of hiring and vacant positions.

Description: This article examines some of the effects of COVID-19 on rural businesses in Canada, with comparison to urban counterparts by industry for contextual support. Topics include business obstacles, expectations for the next year, workforce changes and other subjects from the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, fourth quarter of 2022.

Description:

A variety of different factors impact the ability of Canadian businesses to operate, such as the geographical location of businesses, the industry the businesses operate in, and the size of businesses. Differences may also be apparent when looking at different categories of business owners, as different segments of the Canadian population face different challenges at a personal level, and as owners of businesses. From the beginning of October to early November 2022, Statistics Canada conducted the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions (CSBC) to collect information on the environment businesses are currently operating in and their expectations moving forward. This article explores results from the survey by looking at the businesses majority-owned by immigrants to Canada and businesses majority-owned by racialized persons. While there is some degree of crossover between these two sub-populations, they are two distinct groups and face different challenges. The information and trends presented in this article are based on data collected via the CSBC.

Description:

From October 3 to November 7 2022, Statistics Canada conducted the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions. The purpose of this survey is to collect information on businesses in Canada related to emerging issues. This infographic presents key results from this.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: From April 2nd to May 6th, 2024, Statistics Canada conducted the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions. The purpose of this survey is to collect information on businesses in Canada related to emerging issues. This infographic presents key results from this.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This infographic focuses on innovation and business strategy in Canada, based on data from the 2022 Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy. It presents the long-term strategy for innovative businesses and non-innovative businesses, the innovation rate and intellectual property(IP) ownership for multinational businesses and non-multinational businesses, the competition, and the skill shortages in Canadian businesses.

Description: From January 2nd to February 5th, 2024, Statistics Canada conducted the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions. The purpose of this survey is to collect information on businesses in Canada related to emerging issues. This iteration of the survey focuses on business expectations and business conditions in Canada. In addition, the questionnaire for the first quarter of 2024 includes a component specifically for non-profit organizations (NPOs). The intent of this set of questions is to address a present data gap and to provide a better understanding of the non-profit sector. This infographic presents key results from this.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: The following presentation provides an overview of Canada’s integration into global supply chains, the steps being taking to fill knowledge gaps, and questions left to be resolved.

Description: This infographic focuses on product and business process innovation introduced by Canadian businesses during the 2020-2022 period, based on data from the 2022 Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy. It presents the rate of innovation among Canadian businesses, the most common obstacles to innovation reported by businesses, the prevalent types of intellectual property (IP) protection filed by innovation businesses that developed new products, and the role of government support for innovation.

Description: Businesses have faced numerous challenges since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health restrictions on business and personal activities aimed at stopping the spread of the virus were associated with a slowing of economic activity. This article examines how new businesses that entered after the beginning of the pandemic fared compared with previous entry cohorts.

Description: This article explores results from the survey related to the use of AI in producing goods and delivering services. Furthermore, this article explains the specific types of AI being used, such as machine learning, virtual agents and voice recognition, as well as the impact of AI adoption on tasks performed by employees and on employment levels. It involves an examination of the data produced by the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions.

Description: With the proportion of small businesses making up nearly all of the employer businesses in Canada, small businesses are an important role in employing Canadians and are a significant driver towards economic recovery. This article provides insights on the expectations of small businesses as well as the unique conditions faced by these businesses in the second quarter of 2024. It involves an examination of the data produced by the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions.

Description: The pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the Canadian economy. This impact was uneven across different workers and businesses. However, there is little information available on how businesses were affected by and survived through the pandemic according to the characteristics of their owners, especially those owned by certain groups such as women and immigrants. This article uses a linkage of the monthly business openings and closures with the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy to study the survival rate and employment growth of businesses by gender, and immigrant status of owners.

Description: This analysis compares the investment efforts of official language minority (OLM) owned businesses depending on whether they are located in a rural or urban area. The study is based on a model that uses a seemingly unrelated regression equation (SURE) system estimator to simultaneously assess the impact of determinants that explain the investment of businesses in rural and urban areas and to statistically test the differences between the two areas.

Description: This study examined the impact of federal business innovation and growth support (BIGS) programs on firm financial performance measured using revenue, profit and employment metrics. Using Statistics Canada’s Business Linkable File Environment data, the study observed the effects of BIGS on exporting versus non-exporting firms and Canadian- versus U.S.-owned firms from 2015 to 2020. Unlike previous studies that relied mainly on survey data, one significant aspect of this research was the use of a new dataset, enabling panel data structures and models to be employed. To assess the impact of BIGS and research and development spending on three interrelated measures of firm financial performance, the CDM (Crépon et al., 1998) framework was adopted.

Description: The participation of women-owned businesses in exports is important for policies aiming to ensure that the benefits of international trade reach all groups. Women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Canada are as likely to export as those owned by men, and their export intensity (exports as a share of total sales) was not significantly different. This article examines factors related to the exporting success of women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in Canada.

Description: Businesses in Canada continue to face a variety of challenges in the new year. Business outcomes and challenges expected also vary across businesses owned by different populations. This article focuses on the expectations of one of these populations: majority women-owned businesses. It involves an examination of the data produced by the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions.

Description: Immigrant-owned businesses were more likely to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than other businesses, as they were more concentrated in industries requiring in-person contact and were smaller in scale. To support businesses affected by the pandemic, the Government of Canada launched various COVID-19 liquidity support programs, including the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA), the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) and the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA). These programs were designed to help affected businesses by partially covering their main expenses, such as wages, rent and property expenses.

Description: This article provides a profile of official language minority owned businesses who received federal business innovation and growth support to better understand their demographics and business characteristics, including the age and gender of the owners, the business size and its revenues, the geography of operations, the level of support received, and the distribution of businesses across industries.

Description: The newsletter offers information aimed at three main groups, businesses (small to medium), communities and ethno-cultural groups/communities. Articles and outreach materials will assist their understanding of national and local data from the many relevant sources found on the Statistics Canada website.

Description: Reports on Special Business Projects is an occasional series that focuses primarily on the results of special surveys or special projects conducted by the Centre for Special Business Projects. The reports cover a wide range of topics, which include business performance and trends, custom tabulations of business data, economic impact studies, new measurement frameworks and indicators to support program development, monitoring and performance assessment, territorial economic indicators and other special studies.

Description: The Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series provides for the circulation of research conducted by Analytical Studies and Modelling Branch staff and collaborators. The Series is intended to stimulate discussion on a variety of topics, such as labour, immigration, education and skills, income mobility, well-being, aging, firm dynamics, productivity, economic transitions, and economic geography. Readers of the Series are encouraged to contact the authors with their comments and suggestions. All the papers in the Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series go through institutional and peer review to ensure that they conform to Statistics Canada's mandate as a governmental statistical agency and adhere to generally accepted standards of good professional practice.

Description:

Presented in almanac style, the 2012 Canada Year Book contains more than 500 pages of tables, charts and succinct analytical articles on every major area of Statistics Canada's expertise. The Canada Year Book is the premier reference on the social and economic life of Canada and its citizens.

Description:

This monthly periodical is Statistics Canada's flagship publication for economic statistics. Each issue contains a monthly summary of the economy, major economic events and a feature article. A statistical summary contains a wide range of tables and graphs on the principal economic indicators for Canada, the provinces and the major industrial nations. A historical listing of this same data is contained in the Canadian economic observer: historical supplement (Catalogue no. 11-210-XPB and XIB).

Description:

Services indicators is a quarterly publication which profiles the services industries. Each edition carries two in-depth analytical feature articles. In addition, each issue contains 34 updated tables and nearly 100 charts based on various service industries' output, finances, employment and remuneration data over the most recent eight quarters. The following services industries are covered: communications; finance, insurance and real estate; business services; traveler accommodations and food services; and leisure and personal services.

Description:

Canada's major container ports have competed successfully against their U.S. counterparts for overseas container traffic. However, the ocean container shipping industry is undergoing changes that will impact on their relationships with ports and competition among ports for container traffic has been fierce. This paper explores how Canadian ports might fare in this increasingly competitive environment, based on their natural and man-made attributes, their competitive stance and their potential to meet the evolving ocean container industry.

The assessment includes a review of the ocean container shipping industry, the North American container market and competing ports in the United States (U.S.). This report uses data from two sources, Statistics Canada's marine international origin/destination (O/D) database and the U.S. Department of Transport Maritime Administration's (MARAD) Annual Import Export Waterborne Databank which is based on Journal of Commerce P.I.E.R.S. data.

The keys to the success of Canadian container ports have been a combination of natural endowments, investments in intermodal facilities and competitive pricing. These factors are likely to continue into the future, however, the competition among container ports is likely to intensify as industry consolidation continues and as publicly funded U.S. intermodal terminal and corridor projects come to fruition.

Description:

The Canada e-Book is an online version of the Canada Year Book with texts, tables, charts and audio clips that present the country's economic and social trends. The Canada e-Book illustrates Canada and Canadians under four broad headings: The Land, The People, The Economy, and The State. You will find a wealth of information on topics including the human imprint on the environment, population and demography, health, education, household and family life, labour force, arts and leisure, industries, finance, government and justice. All Canadians will enjoy this useful reference that helps explain the social, economic and cultural forces that shape our nation.

Description:

Businesses today are involved in a variety of practices aimed at preventing or reducing environmental degradation generated from their production activity. During the 1990s, the environmental regulation context changed. Increasingly, governments have relied on voluntary initiatives undertaken by businesses to reduce pollutants and waste, as opposed to regulations. However, at the same time, the federal authorities have undertaken to revise the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), in order to increase federal power for environmental regulation but with strong emphasis put on promoting pollution prevention. Consequently, businesses today are looking at alternative ways to limit impacts from their operations on the environment.

Environmental Management and Technologies in the Business Sector presents a profile of business demand for environmental processes and technologies, pollution prevention methods and environmental practices, such as environmental management systems and voluntary actions. What types of treatment processes are the most popular ones for reducing gas emissions, liquid, solid and hazardous waste, noise, radiation and vibration, for saving energy or for site reclamation? What is the market for environmental processes and technologies? What pollution prevention methods are used more frequently? What additional environmental practices have businesses adopted (for instance, are voluntary programs more popular than eco-labelling?)?

This paper is based on results from the Survey of Environmental Protection Expenditures. For the first time, the survey asked detailed questions on the type of environmental process or technology used and the adoption of environmental practices. The paper is a complement to both 1996-1997 and 1998 Environmental Protection Expenditures in the Business Sector reports (Catalogue no. 16F0006XIE).

Description:

Since September 11, 2001, important changes in the financial and operating statistics of airline activities in Canada have taken place. In particular, most airline companies have seen a deterioration of their financial positions and the number of flights and of seats available have generally decreased while security measures have increased. The aim of this paper is to examine the post-September 11 aviation market in Canada with respect to one key operating characteristic: the number of flights of airline companies operating in Canada. More specifically, the following questions are addressed: Was there a recovery in airline activities in Canada since September 11? Were all losses in all sectors recovered (domestic, transborder and international)? Were all losses at all airports recovered?

This paper is divided into three sections: 1. Data sources and limitations, the scope of this research and the methodological approach used are described in the first section. 2. The second section highlights the main results obtained and discusses these results in the context of the recent trends in airline activities in Canada. 3. Lastly, some conclusions are offered, based on the evidence collected and analysed.