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October 28, 2022HALIFAX BUSINESS CONDITIONS: OCTOBER 17-23, 2022 Statistics Canada has released real-time local business conditions from October 17 to October 23, 2022. Throughout this article, reference dates mean the start of the week. Note that these data are not adjusted for seasonality and changes may simply reflect regular seasonal patterns.
From August 10 of 2020 to the week starting October 17 of 2022, the local business conditions index for Halifax has increased by 104.0%. Halifax had the third smallest gains reported over this period after Hamilton and Vancouver, but this has been influenced by a large decline in the recent weeks following post tropical storm Fiona. St. John's, Regina and Abbotsford reported the strongest growth in business conditions over this period.
In the week of September 26 to October 2, Halifax business conditions deteriorated sharply following power outages and school/office closures in the wake of post tropical storm Fiona. From October 3 to 9, Halifax business conditions deteriorated further, falling by 2.4%. In the week of October 10 to 16, Halifax business conditions started to recover with a small gain of 2.2%. From October 17 to 23, Halifax business conditions continues to recover with a 6.5% gain. Business conditions were up in most cities across Canada with the largest gain in Toronto. Among those cities reporting declines in business conditions, Hamilton, Sherbrooke and Ottawa had the largest drops.
Compared with 4 weeks prior, business conditions were down 13.8% for Halifax, the third largest decline following Quebec City and Sherbrooke. Most cities reported a deterioration in business conditions over the past 4 weeks, with only Toronto, Kitchener, London and Barrie reporting increases in business conditions over this period.
Compared with the same week a year ago, Halifax business conditions have improved by 17.2%. Calgary and Windsor reported the largest improvements over this period. The smallest improvements were reported in Oshawa.
As the experimental business conditions index is both volatile and unadjusted for seasonality, a comparison of year-to-date averages may generate more stable (if less current) insights into changing business conditions.
Comparing the year-to-date average of the business conditions index with approximately the same weeks of 2021, business conditions were up 33.5% in Halifax. Victoria and Hamilton reported the slowest year-to-date growth while Calgary reported the fastest gain.
Prior to the sharp decline in the aftermath of post tropical storm Fiona, Halifax's business conditions generally followed trends observed in Canada's largest urban centres.
Prior to the effects of the storm, Halifax business conditions were similar to other medium-sized cities, though Windsor, Quebec City, Winnipeg and Regina reported notably stronger growth in business conditions than other medium-sized cities.
Even before the storm at the end of September, Halifax business conditions had started to fall behind those in most smaller centres. Prior to 2022, Halifax business conditions generally lagged those in smaller urban centres. St. John's business conditions exhibit considerably more volatility than in other cities.
Notes
This experimental data product starts from information on the number of businesses listed in the business register in "business dense areas" of a large urban centre. Data from 2019 business locations provided baseline (ie: pre-pandemic) insight on business revenue and employment.
The data focus on 27 industries in particular: retail bakeries, furniture stores, electronics/appliance stores, building materials/garden supply stores, food/beverage stores, gas stations/convenience stores, clothing stores, cycling stores, book stores, general merchandise stores, florists, cinemas, dental offices, museums, zoos/gardens, amusement/theme parks, casinos, fitness/recreation centres, bowling alleys, drinking places, restaurants, and personal care services (such as hair care or esthetics).
Data on current operating conditions (open vs. closed) were collected from commercial application-program interfaces (API). Most of the information is drawn from Google's Places API, which is similar to what is available publicly on Google Maps, with supplementary information from APIs offered by Yelp Fusion and Zomato. Queries to the API are based on a sampling approach ('density-based cursory search') that focuses on the densest areas for business locations in the selected industries. Statistics Canada cautions that the sampling methods used do not follow standard statistical methods due to cost and technical limitations.
Data on current traffic volumes were drawn from TomTom's historical traffic information. As with operating conditions, the information was drawn from a sample of routes within identified business-dense areas. Statistics Canada cautions that traffic volume estimates and their relationship to business conditions may be sensitive to changing traffic patterns, construction/detours, and changes to business models such as curbside pickup or delivery.
The index of real-time local business conditions is estimated as the value of retail revenue, adjusted for both percentage of reported business closures as well as changes in traffic volumes from pre-pandemic levels.
The value of the index was set to 100 as of August 2020. As such, the index shows changes since then, but does not represent the variations in business conditions that existed in the initial period. A location with strong local business conditions in August 2020 would have less opportunity to grow than a location with weak conditions in the same month.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 33-10-0398-01 Real-time Local Business Condition Index (RTLBCI)
Statistics Canada catalogue 71-607X. Real-Time Local Business Conditions Index: Concepts, data, methodology, https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2021/statcan/71-607-x/71-607-x2021017-eng.pdf, July 15, 2021
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