IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/car/carecp/20-16.html

Canadian Small Businesses' Employees and Owners during COVID-19

Author

Abstract

Canadian employers are largely small businesses. Their relevance for job creation and labour demand is integral for policymakers concerned with adverse labour market outcomes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) we document how the self-employed, which we interpret as small business owners, and employees of small businesses are being affected by COVID-19. We find large decreases in the number of small business owners, the number of employed, and in hours worked, from February to July 2020. We also find large labour market impact on small business employees. Our research confirms increasing employment, hours worked, and small business ownership as provinces began reopening their economies in May to July 2020. Still, these improvements are often below pre-March 2020 trends with some demographic groups, such as female and immigrant small business owners, having considerably worse outcomes than their respective counterparts.

Suggested Citation

  • Louis-Philippe Beland & Oluwatobi Fakorede & Derek Mikola, 2020. "Canadian Small Businesses' Employees and Owners during COVID-19," Carleton Economic Papers 20-16, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:20-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.carleton.ca/economics/wp-content/uploads/cewp20-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Felipe Lozano Rojas & Xuan Jiang & Laura Montenovo & Kosali I. Simon & Bruce A. Weinberg & Coady Wing, 2020. "Is the Cure Worse than the Problem Itself? Immediate Labor Market Effects of COVID-19 Case Rates and School Closures in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 27127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gopi Shah Goda & Emilie Jackson & Lauren Hersch Nicholas & Sarah See Stith, 2023. "The impact of Covid-19 on older workers’ employment and Social Security spillovers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 813-846, April.
    2. Andrew I. Friedson & Drew McNichols & Joseph J. Sabia & Dhaval Dave, 2021. "Shelter‐In‐Place Orders And Public Health: Evidence From California During The Covid‐19 Pandemic," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 258-283, January.
    3. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    4. Ana Tribin & Karen García-Rojas & Paula Herrera-Idarraga & Leonardo Fabio Morales & Natalia Ramirez-Bustamante, 2023. "Shecession: The Downfall of Colombian Women During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 158-193, October.
    5. Thuy D. Nguyen & Sumedha Gupta & Martin Andersen & Ana Bento & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2020. "Impacts of State Reopening Policy on Human Mobility," NBER Working Papers 27235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Kuzmanic, Danilo & Valenzuela, Juan Pablo & Claro, Susana & Canales, Andrea & Cerda, Daniela & Undurraga, Eduardo A., 2023. "Socioeconomic disparities in the reopening of schools during the pandemic in Chile," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    7. Cseres-Gergely, Zsombor & Kecht, Valentin & Le Blanc, Julia & Onorante, Luca, 2024. "The economic impact of general vs. targeted lockdowns: New insights from Italian municipalities," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    8. Tsutomu Watanabe & Tomoyoshi Yabu, 2021. "Japan’s voluntary lockdown: further evidence based on age-specific mobile location data," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 333-370, July.
    9. Festus Victor Bekun & Abdulkareem Alhassan & Ilhan Ozturk & Obadiah Jonathan Gimba, 2022. "Explosivity and Time-Varying Granger Causality: Evidence from the Bubble Contagion Effect of COVID-19-Induced Uncertainty on Manufacturing Job Postings in the United States," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(24), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Derek Mikola & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Occupation Tasks and Mental Health in Canada," Carleton Economic Papers 20-07, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 30 Jun 2020.
    11. Goolsbee, Austan & Syverson, Chad, 2021. "Fear, lockdown, and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    12. Kozhaya, Mireille, 2022. "The double burden: The impact of school closures on labor force participation of mothers," Ruhr Economic Papers 956, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Leslie, Emily & Wilson, Riley, 2020. "Sheltering in place and domestic violence: Evidence from calls for service during COVID-19," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    14. Sumedha Gupta & Kosali I. Simon & Coady Wing, 2020. "Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Epidemic: A Review," NBER Working Papers 28139, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Sumedha Gupta & Laura Montenovo & Thuy Nguyen & Felipe Lozano‐Rojas & Ian Schmutte & Kosali Simon & Bruce A. Weinberg & Coady Wing, 2023. "Effects of social distancing policy on labor market outcomes," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 166-193, January.
    16. Leonardo Fabio Morales & Leonardo Bonilla‐Mejía & Jose Pulido & Luz A. Flórez & Didier Hermida & Karen L. Pulido‐Mahecha & Francisco Lasso‐Valderrama, 2022. "Effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the Colombian labour market: Disentangling the effect of sector‐specific mobility restrictions," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 308-357, February.
    17. Louis‐Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Derek Mikola & Taylor Wright, 2022. "The short‐term economic consequences of COVID‐19: Occupation tasks and mental health in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 214-247, February.
    18. Klein, Tony, 2021. "Agree to Disagree? Predictions of U.S. Nonfarm Payroll Changes between 2008 and 2020 and the Impact of the COVID19 Labor Shock," QBS Working Paper Series 2021/07, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's Business School.
    19. Dorn, Florian & Lange, Berit & Braml, Martin & Gstrein, David & Nyirenda, John L.Z. & Vanella, Patrizio & Winter, Joachim & Fuest, Clemens & Krause, Gérard, 2023. "The challenge of estimating the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 interventions – Toward an integrated economic and epidemiological approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    20. Tihana Škrinjarić, 2021. "Profiting on the Stock Market in Pandemic Times: Study of COVID-19 Effects on CESEE Stock Markets," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(17), pages 1-20, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:car:carecp:20-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Court Lindsay (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.