8 Eye-Opening Canadian Small Business Stats

To celebrate small business month/week/day in Canada here are two of my favourite things in one post: small business and fascinating statistics! No fluff, no sugar coating, just straight to the point. All of these stats have been gathered from Government of Canada's Key Small Business Statistic report:

Of the 1.17 million employer businesses in Canada, small business accounts for 97.7% of the total at 1.14 million (with 1.8% medium-sized and 0.3% large rounding out the total)

Small businesses employ over 8.2 million individuals in Canada, or 70.5% of the total private labour force

Small businesses were responsible for 87.7% of net employment change from 2005-2015 (1.2 million jobs!)

Over 80% of start-ups used personal financing to finance their businesses

More than half of small employer businesses are concentrated in two provinces (Ontario & Quebec)

Small businesses contributed an average of 30% of the GDP of their province

The highest percentage of SMB owners is in the 50-64 age group

15.7% of SMBs were majority owned by women and 19.7% were equally owned by women and men