Home Business Facts Canada

"They are in and looking good!"

Home Business Facts on how many people are self-employed in Canada?

In 2006, there were 2.5 million self-employed workers representing around 15 percent of all employed workers in the Canadian economy.

The number of self-employed in the third quarter of 2007 reached an all-time high of 2.65 million.

Over the past decade, the number of self-employed workers increased by 15.0 percent.
The share of female self-employment rose steadily from 1976 to 1998, from 26 percent to 36 percent,

The total number of self-employed workers in Canada increased at an annual rate of 2.1 percent between 1976 and 2006

Self-employed workers owning incorporated businesses without paid employees registered the highest growth rates — 7.3 percent

Incorporated businesses with paid employees Followed at 3.5 percent

Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, April 2007

Slightly more than 1/3 of self-employed were female

Leading the Pack

From 1990 to 1998, the total number of small businesses in British Columbia has grown by 65 per cent.

Unincorporated self-employed businesses with no paid workers are responsible for almost three-quarters of the growth.

Source: Small Business: A Profile of Small Business Growth and Employment in British Columbia (1999)

The Growth Continues

Home-based business continues to be one of the fastest growing forms of entrepreneurship in British Columbia.

Census data for 1996 show 155,455 people in British Columbia working from home.

This represents almost nine per cent of the provincial workforce operating a home based business.

Every year 15,000 British Columbian launch a new home-business, accounting for more than 50 percent of all new business startups in the province.

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