More than 131,000 businesses in Canada were lost in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by the end of 2023, representing 11 percent fewer businesses, according to the Industry Department’s latest annual Key Small Business Statistics report. Among those lost, more than 125,600 were small businesses, defined as firms with 1 to 99 paid employees.
The latest report, released in March, showed that Canada had a total of 1,095,251 businesses of all types and sizes in December 2023. This represents a net loss of 131,203 compared with the 1,226,454 figure in December 2019 indicated in the report released in 2020, as first reported by Blacklock’s reporter.
