Business Bulletin: Small businesses are too big to ignore

Small businesses are the heart of our communities. 
They create jobs, drive innovation, and generate wealth for our community. As we conclude Small Business Week, we’re encouraging people to shop and support local.
The Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce joined the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and more than 155 chambers of commerce and boards of trade across the province to encourage Ontarians to support local businesses in their 
community as well as amplify on-going advocacy and 
initiatives to promote and protect small businesses who have been hardest hit by the crisis.
As part of our celebration of local business, we held our annual Business Excellence Awards. Check out our website and social media channels to see the video presentation of all our award winners. Our local business community is resilient and inspiring.
Where did they go?
According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, 
long-term unemployment numbers are still nearly double what they were 
pre-pandemic. Despite being in a labour shortage, 27.3% of unemployed Canadians are unaccounted for.
“We can speculate all day, but the fact is, we currently have no data to tell us why nearly 400,000 Canadians haven’t been able to rejoin the workforce after 27 weeks or more,” says Leah Nord, Senior Director of Workforce Strategies and Inclusive Growth with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “Is it a skills issue? Compensation? Life re-evaluation? This is critical information that we need to find out if we are to come up with effective, 
evidence-based policy solutions. Canadians want to work, most are not 
unemployed by choice, so we need to dig down and find out exactly what’s holding them back so we can make evidence-based decisions. Our full economic recovery depends on it.”
We hear regularly about unemployment numbers as a benchmark for our economic success, but it’s not that simple. The Local Labour Market Planning Report from the Workforce Development Board notes that tracking our workforce through unemployment numbers misses out on other issues. Unemployment rates don’t differentiate between full-time and part-time work, reductions in hours, and it doesn’t include people not looking for work due to certain barriers. Our region typically has a lower 
workforce participation rate due to its older population.
Between unemployment numbers and labour market participation, there are still a lot of unknowns that need more research to get a better handle on our workforce struggles.
Recovery
Despite an initial quick recovery, the supply of homes is drying up and impacting the real estate industry. According to the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), the real estate sector accounts for 13% of Canada’s GDP.
Meanwhile, BDC reports that with more things open this summer, more Canadians 
traveled. This meant people spent less on home renovation projects, decreasing demand and prices for building products, dropping lumber retail sales by 7.3% and wholesale by 12.4%.
As of the end of August, BDC estimates our economy to be running at 98.8% of its 
pre-pandemic level.
It’s a worker’s market
The Business Development Bank of Canada reports 55% of Canadian entrepreneurs are struggling to hire workers, leaving them working more hours as well as delaying or refusing orders. More than a quarter report difficulty retaining employees and 30% of companies report difficulty hiring new employees because the 
salaries are too low. BDC doesn’t expect the labour shortage to end any time soon.
Wages are expected to go up an average of 2.7% for 2022, the highest in the last five years. This comes after 36% of companies froze wages in 2020, 12% in 2021, and only 3.3% expect to in 2022.