Canada Business Closures (Monthly)

## What this measures

The number of closing businesses in Canada's business sector each month, seasonally adjusted, monthly since January 2015. Statistics Canada counts businesses with at least one employee, from payroll deduction records. An opening is a business with employees this month that had none last month; a closing is the reverse. Openings include businesses reopening after a temporary closure, and closings include temporary ones.

## Why it matters

Openings and closures are an early read on business confidence and small-business stress: closures rose sharply in spring 2020 and openings rebounded that summer. Monthly data arrive long before annual business demography statistics.

## How to read it

Read openings against closures (canada.business.net_openings is the difference) and both against active businesses (canada.business.opening_rate, closing_rate). Changes of a few hundred in a month are noise.

## What it does not say

These are experimental estimates: they are revised, and a closing can be temporary. Businesses with no employees (the self-employed) are not counted. The counts are not comparable with U.S. establishment births and deaths (annual, per location, permanent only).

## Source

Statistics Canada, table 33-10-0270-01 (vector v1203704159), "Experimental estimates for business openings and closures for Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas, seasonally adjusted; Canada; Business sector industries [T004]; Closing businesses". Palanor reads it from Statistics Canada's Web Data Service every day.

Source: Statistics Canada. Reproduced and distributed on an "as is" basis with the permission of Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada Open Licence.