The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) has annually celebrated entrepreneurship during BDC Small Business Week for over 40 years. This year the event takes place from Oct. 18 - 24, with the slogan ‘Forging the way forward’.
“The coronavirus pandemic has caused one of the most important economic crises in history,” says BDC, “In this unprecedented context, Canadian entrepreneurs have once again shown their courage and ability to adapt. This year for BDC Small Business Week, we are taking the time to recognize their resilience, trying to understand what has changed for Canadian businesses and looking to build for the future in these uncertain times.”
According to BDC, small business is big in Canada, with more than 1.2 million small and medium-sized businesses in Canada. Ninety-eight per cent of these businesses have less than 100 employees. For further clarification, a micro-business has 1 - 4 employees, small business 5 - 99 employees, a medium business has 100 - 499 employees, and a large business has 500 plus employees.
There are currently 863,000 small business entrepreneurs, in Canada, and this increases by nearly 45,000 per year. Women now account for 39 per cent of all entrepreneurs, with men being 2.3 times more likely to start businesses than women.
People with the greatest tendency to start new businesses are in the 25 to 44 year old group.
You can learn more about BDC by going to: www.bdc.ca