The Pulse of Local Business: How Many, How Fast, Where?

Hi fellow economic developer,

In this edition of Field Notes, we take a closer look at business counts, one of the vital signs of local economies.

Tips & Tricks

Data Spotlight: Canadian Business Counts

I land in Winnipeg a while ago on a tight schedule and open the transit app to plan my trip to the hotel. The default map shows just a bold rapid-transit blue line, not even close to my hotel. Great, I sigh, already pricing out a $50+ Uber.

A local beside me says, “Tap the bus layer.”

One tap and the screen explodes with routes every few blocks. The network was there the whole time; my settings just hid 90% of it.

That “hidden bus layer” is exactly what happens with Canadian Business Counts.

Every June & December Statistics Canada tallies every active business location in the country, sliced by 2- to 6-digit NAICS, employment size, and geography right down to the neighbourhood. Two main categories are business with employees and those without.

Important to know and why it matters for local analysis

Employer vs. non-employer: In the December 2024, non-employers outnumber employers almost 3:1 (3.48M vs. 1.36M locations across Canada). We see this trend across the communities of all sizes! Non-employers are sole proprietors and gig operators, great for gauging entrepreneurial energy, but it's not a direct jobs metric.

Missing piece in public tables at the CSD level: Municipal data published by StatCan includes employer counts only! Non-employer data are available province-wide unless you use a custom extract. This means leaving out roughly 75% of businesses!

Locations ≠ enterprises: A chain with 10 stores shows up 10 times plus one head office.

Tip for BR&E teams

Treat employer counts as your job base, and use non-employer growth as an early indicator of future expansion.

Bridging the gap

CityViz uses a custom StatCan extract that delivers both employer and non-employer counts right down to the neighbourhood level (Census Dissemination Area), so you can map true business density around industrial parks, downtowns, and growth nodes.

https://tour.cityviz.ca/business-economic-indicators

https://tour.cityviz.ca/explore

Business Landscape widget

Communities use CityViz Business Landscape widget on their BR&E website pages to support existing and new businesses with deep insights that uncover gaps and open new opportunities.

See it in action at https://bellaville.cityviz.ca/business-landscape/

Read more details about this important dataset in our blog post, https://cityviz.ca/data-spotlight-canadian-business-counts/

Schedule a Chat

Thursdays with CityViz

We open a Zoom room for a casual chat about anything data and economic development related. It’s open to everyone, and you can drop in anytime and stay as long or short as your schedule allows.

When: Thursday, June 19
Time: 1pm–2pm EDT / 11am–12pm MDT / 10–11am PDT
Where: https://cityviz-ca.zoom.us/j/86074504515

We’d love to see you there!

We’ll be back next week with more ideas, visuals, and community updates.

Izabela & CityViz team

Schedule a chat