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August 29, 2022BUSINESS OPENING AND CLOSING, MAY 2022 Statistics Canada released updated data on monthly business openings and closures for May 2022. The data are seasonally adjusted.
A business will be classified as 'opening' if it had no employment in the previous month and then has employment in the next month. A business is 'closing' if it had employment in the previous month and no employment in the current month. For opening and closing, the reason could be a permanent change (i.e. business exit) or temporary for reasons such as seasonal operations, capital maintenance, restructuring or the COVID-19 situation. Continuing business are those that had employment in both the current and previous month. Active businesses are the sum of continuing and opening business in the current month.
The number of active businesses was up in Nova Scotia as well as across the country.
The number of active businesses in Nova Scotia increased 0.1% from Aprill to May 2022 (20,606 active businesses). Nationally, active businesses were up 0.1% as well. Four provinces reported higher numbers of active businesses in May 2022 than in April, with Ontario reporting the largest increase and Prince Edward Island the largest decrease.
Compared with February 2020, the number of active businesses was up 3.0% for Nova Scotia in May 2022. Nationally, active businesses were 2.1% higher compared to February 2020. Eight provinces reported more active businesses, with British Columbia reporting the largest gain. Newfoundland and Labrador saw the largest decline in active business compared with February 2020.
The number of active businesses in Halifax was up 9.4% from February 2020 to May 2022. Among cities (Census Metropolitan Areas), only three reported fewer active businesses from February 2020 to May 2022: St. John's, Saguenay and Belleville. The cities with the largest rises in the number of active businesses were Windsor and Peterborough.
The rate at which business either opened, continued or closed can be examined to see how the number of active businesses has changed. The calculation for the opening, continuing and closure rates are based on the number of active businesses in the previous month.
Most businesses continue operating each month. In May 2022, Nova Scotia's business continuing rate was 95.8% (95.3% nationally).
Nova Scotia's business opening rate was 4.4% as of May 2022 (4.7% nationally).
Nova Scotia's business closing rate was 4.2% in May 2022 (4.6% nationally).
Compared with the February 2020 (pre-pandemic) benchmark, the number of active Nova Scotia businesses in May 2022 was lower in mining/oil/gas (a small number to start with), forestry/fishing, wholesale trade, and retail trade. From February 2020 to May 2022, there were notable percentage increases in the number of active businesses in utilities (also starting from a small number), professional/technical services, construction, accommodation/food, and real estate/leasing.
Nationally, the number of active businesses was down for mining/oil/gas, wholesale trade, transportation, finance/insurance and personal/repair services. There were notable increases in professional/technical services, information/culture industries and construction.
Statistics Canada has broken out specific data for tourism-related industries. This shows that the number of active tourism-related businesses was up 5.2% in Nova Scotia from February 2020 to May 2022. Travel services and transportation were the only Nova Scotia tourism-related industries to report lower active businesses compared to before the pandemic.
Nationally the decline in tourism-related businesses was 0.3% with the largest declines in travel services and transportation.
Professional/technical services contributed the most to rising business counts from April to May 2022 while finance/insurance reported the largest decline in the number of active businesses.
The source data is seasonally adjusted. The data may not aggregate due to firms being classified into multiple industry or geography.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 33-10-0270-01 Experimental estimates for business openings and closures for Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas; Methodology: Business Opening and Closing
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