A year into COVID, still only 62% of businesses are fully open, 44% fully staffed and less than a third are achieving the same sales as before the pandemic, findsJust two years ago the CFIB estimated that more than $1.5 trillion in business assets would come into play over the next decade as almost three quarters of small business owners planned an exit.
Seven out of 10 of business owners in the CFIB survey said they had changed their thinking about how they plan to retire or exit their business and 42% say they will retire later because of COVID-19. Many business owners rely on the sale of their business to fund their retirement, CFIB said, but 57% say the value of that business has now dropped. The survey also found that 7% had used money from retirement savings to keep their businesses going.
The way things are going, Canada could lose 20% of its small businesses by the end of the pandemic, warns the CFIB. In 2020, 58,000 closed and one in six are now at risk of closing, it said. Those businesses that have survived are awash with debt. The CFIB calculates that the average small business is now $170,000 in debt, but for some sectors it is much more. The average debt of the arts, recreation and information sector is $242,000 and in hospitality it is $213,000. Three quarters of businesses say it will take them over a year to repay these debts and 11% worry they will never repay them.
Not hamstrung by covid. Hamstrung by government response to an illness that we don’t need to be locking down sectors of business or people for, but that governments have forgotten why they needed to do it but refuse to walk it back while people suffer 🤦🏻♀️
Brace yourselves Ontario. Ottawa just got RED-ZONED as of 11pm tonight. Does anyone actually believe the rest of the province won't next?
Yet the federal government thinks there is gonna be a full recovery. The government, media elites, and academics are so out of touch with reality. Lockdowns will not stop until every small business has been extinguished. Planned demolition? Ineptitude by Petit Prince JT? Both.
Once this passes in a few months they will be able to recoup the losses, we will enter our lifetime version of the roaring 20’s.
Covid did not do this. Government did. Small businesses worked hard to make their places safe for customers only to be shut down once thousands were spent. There is no proof any spread happened from small businesses.
Now do deemed to poverty disabled injured workers watching a system instead of a day in court for early retirement.
It’s the gov. Royally fk’d small business owners and everyone doesn’t benefit from it. You want to lock down? Then lock down properly. What the FK is lockdown for except for this and that stores? And what’s with the Covid cases transported by airline into our communities?
Oh Canada, caring about retirement more than people’s lives. Being more concerned about debt than thousands dying? Hard to believe I share a country with these ignorant pieces of garbage. You obviously haven’t had any of your friends or loved ones die. I am ashamed of you all.
This is shameful, when are we going to get a grip?
And so are retirements for everyone who overpaid for real estate or gave kids money to buy house because of FOMO They'll all be working at Walmart, Tim Hortons or McDonald's until they are 90
Covid isn’t the cause - the response is and it’s intentional.
it's almost as if capitalism values our labour more than our well being. if only there was another way