BDC REPORTS ON PHASING OUT THE LOCKDOWNS: THE ABC’S OF A GRADUAL RECOVERY
May 26, 2020
The sharpest economic contraction of our lifetimes will be followed by an uneven recovery. For the month of May, BDC has shared their Monthly Economic Letter with important information about what has happened to the Canadian economy in the past 60 days.
With information from Statistics Canada, the diagnosis by mid-March was that there had been a reduction of nearly 9% in economic activity which translates to 2.6% for the first quarter as a whole.
Employment data is very concerning; a million jobs were lost in March as Canada reached an unemployment rate of 7.8%. The data for the week of April 12 was even worse; almost 2 million more jobs were lost pushing the unemployment rate to 13%.
The biggest concern is that social distancing and containment is hitting small and medium sized businesses like the businesses in the marine industry, disproportionately hard because we face greater liquidity challenges. Unemployment comes disproportionately from smaller businesses with no less than 75% of companies either partially or totally reducing their activities since March according to a BDC survey.
This may be valuable data for your business. Click here to read the total report.
