This month, small businesses saw the Business Barometer index for British Columbia have a marginal gain of 0.7 points, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).
With the first upward climb in six months, this means that business owners in BC are beginning to gain confidence in the health of their own operation moving forward, according to CFIB.
The slight improvement means the BC small business confidence index now sits at 53.8 points, placing it below the Canadian average (61.5 per cent) by 7.7 points even despite its increase.
“It’s not a huge increase, but it may be a signal that small business confidence is ready to recover,” said Muriel Protzer, Policy Analyst for BC. “That being said, June has been a very difficult month for small business so we will be needing to see some more meaningful change at all levels of government to help increase that growth in confidence.”
Measured on a scale between 0 and 100, an index level above 50 means owners expecting their business’ performance to be stronger in the next year outnumber those expecting weaker performance. An index level of between 65 and 75 means that the economy is growing at its potential.
This June, 20 per cent of business owners expect their full-time staffing levels to go up, 70 per cent expect it to remain the same, and 10 per cent expect it to decrease.
“This is actually relatively low for where we should be in June,” said Protzer. “We’re approaching those summer months, most businesses want to be hiring in the summer. Usually, we see it about 10 points higher.”
According to Protzer, businesses are facing two problems. The first is being a shortage of qualified labour. Businesses are having difficulties finding employees that they can hire that have the skills necessary for entry-level jobs. The other issue is while some businesses are having issues finding qualified employees, others are having issues even being able to afford to hire additional employees due to additional costs such as the Employee Health Tax.
The grade of confidence for business owners here in the province sits second to last in Canada, ranking above Newfoundland and Labrador (50.0).
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