Abstract
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This paper estimates the contributions to gross domestic product (GDP) made by small, medium-sized, and large businesses in the Canadian business sector from 2001 to 2008. The contribution of large businesses, that is, businesses with 500 or more employees, to business-sector GDP steadily increased from 45.0% in 2001 to 47.9% in 2008. Small and medium-sized businesses, including unincorporated businesses, accounted for the remaining 52.1% in 2008.
Large firms had more than 50% of business-sector GDP in utilities, information, mining and oil and gas, manufacturing, finance and insurance, management of companies and enterprises, and transportation and warehousing, while they had less than 15.0% of GDP in construction, other services, education, health, and agriculture (including forestry and fishing).
About half of the increase in the large-business-sector GDP from 2001 and 2008 was accounted for by the mining and oil and gas industry, where GDP increased by $87.0 billion overall and grew by about 17.6% per year during this period. As the resource sector expanded through the 2000s, large firms in the sector contributed substantially to the increase in their overall share of business-sector GDP.
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