Small business, and getting smaller

The 2003 PC Party platform stated:

In this Province, medium and small businesses play the lead role in creating employment and income, and in diversifying both the products and services we sell and the markets into which we sell them.

Medium and small business are even more important to sustainable economic and social development in rural communities, since they are labour-intensive and widely dispersed throughout the Province. They are often the only realistic prospect for creating jobs and reducing unemployment.

During its first mandate, a Progressive Conservative government will formulate and implement smart policies and programs to promote medium and small business development.

How has the small business sector fared in the past four years?

Not good.

According to the provincial government's own statistics, the number of businesses in the province has declined by nearly 3% overall between the election year of 2003 and 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The number declined in almost every part of the province, with the sole exception, among the 20 economic zones, of Labrador West and St. John's. This map shows the extent of the decline; green represents an increase in registered businesses; yellow a decrease of up to -5%; orange a decrease of up to -10%; red a decrease of -10% or more. (Click to enlarge.)

In the first two full years of Danny Williams' government, 2003 through 2005 inclusive, the number of registered businesses decreased for two years running in the province overall. The decline was widespread, exhibiting itself in twelve out of twenty zones.

And in the five years up to and including 2005, a pre-census year, the number of businesses in the province declined by nearly -5%.

(In fairness, the year-over-year change for 2004-2005, the most recent figures available, was positive in northern, central, and western Labrador, and in St. John's, which has only had a year-over-year business decline in one year (2002) for which figures are available.)

If — and it's a somewhat of an "if", but not a huge "if" — this business decline corresponds even approximately to the population change over the same period, then the 2006 census of population, due out in just over two weeks, will probably reveal a province whose population, which stood at 512,000 in 2001, has slumped back below half a million, to the population it had in the mid- to late 1960s.