Whitecourt’s small businesses: the heart and strength of the community

 

By Laura Bohnert

Whitecourt is a growing, resource-based economy, but have you ever looked at where Whitecourt gets its economic strength from? While big businesses are an integral part of the resource exploration that is often boasted to be the heart of the economy, there is another integral piece that is often overlooked: the economic power of the small business.

Small businesses play an important—and precarious—role in local, provincial, and national economies. Since they are dealing with narrower profit margins and more focussed markets, small businesses often take the biggest hit when it comes to economic turmoil—like Alberta’s latest recession. In this sense, small businesses are economic markers, but that isn’t the only thing that makes them so vastly important.

Small businesses also account for a substantial percentage of the business and employment market—and that pertains to Whitecourt as well as the entire country.

According to the most recent available statistics, small businesses accounted for 95.6 per cent of all businesses in Whitecourt. Not only does that represent an important portion of economic revenue, but those small businesses also play an important role in local job creation.

Canada-wide, small businesses accounted for 87.7 per cent of jobs between 2005 and 2015. During that same time period, medium-sized and large businesses created just over 7 and 4 per cent of jobs, respectively. That means those 95.6 per cent of small businesses, which by definition employ between one and 49 employees each, are sustaining a very large part of Whitecourt’s work force—and the community that work force forms.

In addition, while small businesses bring in the revenue that is necessary to creating healthy and appealing communities that draw more people into them, they also support population growth within the community by creating work opportunities for local residents, along with employment and educational opportunities for the community’s youth. Small businesses foster the possibility for youth to viably stay within the community, thus promoting further community growth.

Small businesses play an important role in creating stable economies that aren’t as susceptible to the same revenue and workforce fluctuations of strictly resource-based economies that are tethered to the ebb and flow of resource availability and accessibility, and that stability is also advocated through the diversification small businesses can bring to local industry—as well as to the community.

In other words, while small businesses are often the most vulnerable to recession, they also provide the community with the tools and support that can procure stability and endurance, and that is what makes them such a valuable component of any community.

So, remember to shop local so you can support the businesses that have invested their resources in your community.