Small Business Statistics in British Columbia

A number of months back, I was researching some statistics of small business in British Columbia.

I came across a very helpful email from Gary at Small Business BC, and I’ll share some of what he shared below.

Have a look at the Small Business Profile Study by BCSTATS:
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/bus_stat/busind/sm_bus.asp
It states that in 2007-2008 there were 384,300 small businesses in BC.  58.3% of those were in the Mainland/Southwest region of BC.

City of Vancouver Statistics are harder to find.
Try:
http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/statistics/Pages/KeyFacts.aspx (for the GVRD)
You may try asking at the City of Vancouver (although I don’t know if they compile that info). You can find the number of business licenses issued at the metrovancouver site..but not by size of business.

You can also try Statistics Canada:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/reference/refcentre-centreref/index-eng.htm
or BCSTATS:
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/ds_email.asp
Small Business BC does not define what a small business is. We use the Provincial Government definition of any business with fewer than 50 employees. I don’t believe I have ever seen a definition of a "medium" sized business. It is either "Small" (50 or under employees) or "Small and Medium" (50 and under employees..same as "small") and "Large" (over 50 employees)