Top 7 Reasons to Love Canada’s Small Businesses

Let’s show our small businesses some love.
They deserve it.

As I’ve said here before, Canada’s small business owners take the risks and provide the imagination, the capital and the energy that drives the economy, jobs and wealth in Canada.

Last Valentine’s, I thanked the spouses who stand alongside or behind us in our businesses.

This year, I’m taking a page from the American Small Business Administration (SBA) and their Top 10 Reasons SBA is Sweet on Small Business.

Here are my top seven statistical reasons to love Canada’s small businesses. (Why seven, not 10? We don’t collect as much data on them here.)

Small but mighty

  1. Small businesses are just down the street or block where we live and/or work—close to 1.2 million locations in 2011.
  2. Three out of four small business owners started their business from scratch.
  3. Between 2002 and 2008, about 100,000 new small businesses, on average, were created in Canada each year.
  4. Small businesses accounted for some 43 per cent of all jobs created in the private sector from 2001 to 2011.
  5. Small businesses employed some 48 per cent of private sector workers in 2011, or some 5.1 million employees across Canada.
  6. Small businesses represented some 42 per cent of economic output produced in the private sector in recent years.
  7. Small businesses contributed $68 billion, 25 per cent of the value of all exports in 2009.

Impressive numbers, aren’t they! Are there any others you would like to add?

Notes and references for the statistics:

Industry Canada defines a small business as having fewer than 100 employees. Above that size, and up to 499 employees, a firm is considered medium-sized. In banking, small businesses are generally defined as businesses generating less than $5 million in annual revenues.

  1. Industry Canada, Key Small Business Statistics – July 2011
  2. Table 11. Industry Canada. The state of entrepreneurship in Canada
  3. Key Small Business Statistics – July 2012
  4. Industry Canada, Key Small Business Statistics – July 2012
  5. Key Small Business Statistics – July 2012
  6. Key Small Business Statistics – July 2012
  7. Canadian Small Business Exporters – June 2011
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Gregory Kells
Greg Kells is the Founder and President of Sunbelt Canada, the number one business brokerage in the country. He has directly facilitated the sale of over 1,000 businesses and is a two-time winner of Businessperson of the Year in Ottawa. Greg is passionate about mentoring and teaching, with experience as a guest lecturer at Harvard, Yale, Duke, and various colleges across Canada. He is active in numerous community organizations and advocates for economic empowerment, the environment, science, and technology.
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