Lockdowns Cost Small and Medium-Sized Businesses $60 Billion in Pandemic’s First Year: StatCan

Lockdowns Cost Small and Medium-Sized Businesses $60 Billion in Pandemic’s First Year: StatCan
Signs indicating space available are seen on storefronts amid COVID-19 lockdowns on Queen Street in Toronto on April 16, 2020. The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette
|Updated:
0:00

Canada’s small and medium-sized businesses lost about $60 billion in the first year of pandemic lockdowns, says the country’s national statistical agency.

In a report published on Feb. 18, Statistics Canada said about 47 percent of all small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—businesses with annual salary expenses of less than $1.5 million“experienced a drop in gross profit, totalling a loss of nearly $60 billion” from 2019 to 2020.