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August 09, 2024HALIFAX BUSINESS CONDITIONS: JULY 29-AUGUST 4, 2024 Statistics Canada has released real-time local business conditions from July 29 to August 4, 2024. Reference dates reported now refer to the date following the end of the reference week. These data are not adjusted for seasonality and monthly or weekly changes may simply reflect regular seasonal patterns.
From August 10 of 2020 to August 4, 2024, the local business conditions index for Halifax increased by 340.4%. Regina, Abbotsford and Windsor reported the strongest growth in business conditions over this period while Toronto and Hamilton had the smallest gains.
Halifax business conditions decreased 12.3% in the week ending August 5. Of 30 urban centers, 23 reported declining business conditions compared to the week prior, led by Halifax and Kelowna. Québec City and Hamilton reported the fastest gains in business conditions over the previous week.
Compared with four weeks prior, business conditions were down 12.8% in Halifax. 24 of 30 urban centers reported declining business conditions over the most recent four weeks, with Calgary and Halifax reporting the largest declines. Barrie reported the largest gain in business conditions over this period.
Compared with the same week a year ago, Halifax business conditions have improved by 48.3% - the third strongest year-over-year gain among cities. All cities reported improvements over the same period last year with the strongest gains in London and Barrie. The smallest gains were reported in Toronto and Kingston.
As the experimental business conditions index is both volatile and unadjusted for seasonality, a comparison of year-to-date averages may generate more stable (if less current) insights into changing business conditions.
Compared with the first 31 weeks of 2023, Halifax business conditions were up 46.6% in the same period of 2024 (tied for third fastest). Over this period, Ottawa and Kitchener reported the largest gains while Kingston reported the smallest gain. No urban centres have reported a year-to-date decline in business conditions.
Halifax business conditions typically fall sharply during the winter months and rebound in the spring. Weather and cultural events also cause volatility in Halifax business conditions. Growth through the spring has pushed Halifax's business conditions ahead of those in all large urban centres (population >800,000) except Calgary.
Few medium-sized cities (250,000 < population < 800,000) have matched Halifax's recent gain in business conditions, bringing the city's business conditions above those in all other medium sized urban centres except Kitchener, Regina and Windsor.
Halifax business conditions have risen to be above most smaller urban centres. Recent declines have put Halifax in fifth place behind Moncton.
Notes
This experimental data product starts from information on the number of businesses listed in the business register in "business dense areas" of a large urban centre. Data from 2019 business locations provided baseline (ie: pre-pandemic) insight on business revenue and employment.
The data focus on 27 industries in particular: retail bakeries, furniture stores, electronics/appliance stores, building materials/garden supply stores, food/beverage stores, gas stations/convenience stores, clothing stores, cycling stores, book stores, general merchandise stores, florists, cinemas, dental offices, museums, zoos/gardens, amusement/theme parks, casinos, fitness/recreation centres, bowling alleys, drinking places, restaurants, and personal care services (such as hair care or esthetics).
Data on current operating conditions (open vs. closed) were collected from commercial application-program interfaces (API). Most of the information is drawn from Google's Places API, which is similar to what is available publicly on Google Maps, with supplementary information from APIs offered by Yelp Fusion and Zomato. Queries to the API are based on a sampling approach ('density-based cursory search') that focuses on the densest areas for business locations in the selected industries. Statistics Canada cautions that the sampling methods used do not follow standard statistical methods due to cost and technical limitations.
Data on current traffic volumes were drawn from TomTom's historical traffic information. As with operating conditions, the information was drawn from a sample of routes within identified business-dense areas. Statistics Canada cautions that traffic volume estimates and their relationship to business conditions may be sensitive to changing traffic patterns, construction/detours, and changes to business models such as curbside pickup or delivery.
The index of real-time local business conditions is estimated as the value of retail revenue, adjusted for both percentage of reported business closures as well as changes in traffic volumes from pre-pandemic levels.
The value of the index was set to 100 as of August 2020. As such, the index shows changes since then, but does not represent the variations in business conditions that existed in the initial period. A location with strong local business conditions in August 2020 would have less opportunity to grow than a location with weak conditions in the same month.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 33-10-0398-01 Real-time Local Business Condition Index (RTLBCI)
Statistics Canada catalogue 71-607X. Real-Time Local Business Conditions Index: Concepts, data, methodology,
https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2021/statcan/71-607-x/71-607-x2021017-eng.pdf, July 15, 2021
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