Last week, Statistics Canada released data for business openings and closures for each of the provinces. The data was current up to December 2023.
Here’s a look at the number of active businesses in each of the provinces for both November and December 2023.
| Nov 2023 | Dec 2023 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PEI | 4,209 | 4,184 | -25 |
| NB | 17,417 | 17,353 | -64 |
| NS | 20,661 | 20,579 | -82 |
| MB | 28,698 | 28,572 | -126 |
| QC | 201,674 | 201,437 | -237 |
| SK | 24,915 | 24,661 | -254 |
| NL | 12,651 | 12,366 | -285 |
| AB | 120,025 | 119,656 | -369 |
| BC | 155,331 | 154,570 | -761 |
| ON | 359,358 | 358,375 | -983 |
Alberta had the fourth largest number of active businesses of all the provinces, which makes sense given that it has the fourth largest population. We’d the proportion to be similar.
However, Alberta saw the third largest decrease in the number of active businesses between November and December 2023, coming behind just Ontario and British Columbia.
Here’s how the numbers break down for Alberta in December 2023.
| Active businesses | 119,656 |
| Opening businesses | 5,791 |
| Continuing businesses | 114,122 |
| Closing businesses | -6,353 |
| Reopening businesses | 3,528 |
| Entrants | 2,263 |
Opening businesses are businesses that had no employees in November but had at least one employee in December, such as when a small firm begins, a large firm opens a new establishment, or a seasonal firm re-opens.
Continuing businesses are businesses that had at least one employee in both November and December.
Closing businesses are those that closed their doors in December.
Reopening businesses are the opening businesses that were also active in a previous month, but not necessarily November.
Finally, entrants are businesses with employees in December but that were not active in any previous month in the current or previous year.
This means that Alberta saw 6,353 of its businesses close their doors in December 2023. Luckily, we also saw nearly 5,800 businesses open their doors, so the net lost was actually in the hundreds, not the thousands.
That being said, Alberta wasn’t the only province to see businesses close their doors. Here are all the business closures by province for December 2023.
| ON | 18,929 |
| BC | 7,803 |
| QC | 7,626 |
| AB | 6,353 |
| MB | 1,275 |
| SK | 1,199 |
| NS | 959 |
| NL | 748 |
| NB | 735 |
| PEI | 237 |
Alberta came in fourth place, which, again, shouldn’t be that surprising since we have the fourth largest population.
And we see that every province saw business closures in December. Something interesting shows up, however, when we calculate the percentage those closing businesses were of the number of active businesses the previous month.
| Active (Nov 2023) | Closing (Dec 2023) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| NL | 12,651 | 748 | 5.91% |
| PEI | 4,209 | 237 | 5.63% |
| AB | 120,025 | 6,353 | 5.29% |
| ON | 359,358 | 18,929 | 5.27% |
| BC | 155,331 | 7,803 | 5.02% |
| SK | 24,915 | 1,199 | 4.81% |
| NS | 20,661 | 959 | 4.64% |
| MB | 28,698 | 1,275 | 4.44% |
| NB | 17,417 | 735 | 4.22% |
| QC | 201,674 | 7,626 | 3.78% |
Once again, Alberta is in third place, but this time, they’re behind only Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island.
Alberta’s closing businesses in December 2023 were the largest percentage of November’s active businesses among the four most populous provinces, beating out both Ontario and BC, as well as Québec, which had the lowest percentage.
Given how large this number was, I compared it to previous months, and I discovered that this was the largest number of closed businesses Alberta has seen since June 2020, just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here’s how that compares to the other provinces.
| AB | Jun 2020 |
| ON | Jun 2020 |
| SK | Jun 2020 |
| NL | Jun 2020 |
| BC | Apr 2023 |
| QC | Apr 2023 |
| MB | Apr 2023 |
| NS | Jun 2023 |
| NB | Jun 2023 |
| PEI | Nov 2023 |
Alberta joined 3 other provinces in having their highest number of businesses closures since June 2020. The other 6 provinces had higher closures more recently than that.
Of the 4 provinces that had their highest number of businesses closures in 3.5 years, only Newfoundland and Labrador’s closures made up a larger percentage of November’s active businesses than Alberta’s.
Hopefully this ends up being just a statistical blip and things rebound quickly. Still, the largest increase in business closings since the pandemic is concerning.
