Sudbury lost 60 small businesses in early days of pandemic, workforce analysts say

The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were not kind to small businesses in Sudbury.

Reggie Caverson, executive director of Sudbury & Manitoulin Workforce Planning, said the city lost 60 small businesses between March and June 2020, while Manitoulin and area lost another 31 in the same period.

Very likely, those business owners won't take a chance at starting another business, Caverson said.

"A lot of people, when they start up their own business, invest a lot of their own personal money into it," she said. "So it's possible that that money is completely gone. And we don't really know whether or not they would have the resources orthe finances to set up a new business."

The numbers were compiled from Statistics Canada and broken down into region-specific data sets by Sudbury & Manitoulin Workforce Planning, one of 26 local planning boards in Ontario that address local labour market issues.

Caverson said small retailers and personal care services bore the brunt of the economic slowdown.

"We see that with health care services, particularly the ones that have had the hardest time bouncing back, tend to be the hospitality accommodations, food services, some retail, some personal services like hairstylists, different salons," Caverson said.

"Those are the ones that are having a very hard time bouncing back because their closures have been very significant. They've been considered non-essential."

Both federal and provincial levels of government have offered loans to small businesses to help stop the bleeding, but Caverson said those programs only go so far.

"Some of the businesses are saying, 'We can't take on any more loans. We just can't do that.'" Caverson said. "Our hope always would be that they would reopen, but without a lot of support, it may be pretty doubtful."

More numbers are expected from Statistics Canada soon, she said. In the meantime, the group has issued its annual local labour market plan, a type of economic blueprint for the region.

They're also planning on rolling out a job market survey for employers to gauge what's happening on the hiring front, and eventually a centralized online portal for job seekers that will aggregate job search results from all job web sites.