B.C. is arguably having a crisis of confidence.
While it might be unpleasant, consumers and small business owners alike are feeling less confident about the future, according to different surveys. The recent closure at Small Business BC, which provided grants and services to smaller businesses likely only added to business-owner angst. .
B.C. small business owners are the least confident among owners in Canada that their ventures will perform better three months into the future, according to a .
They are the second-least confident that their businesses will perform better in 12 months, behind only Newfoundland-based owners. Provincial confidence levels have also been falling. CFIB found 46.
3 per cent of B.C. respondents expected their profitability to improve in three months.
That is down from 48.1 per cent one month earlier and down from an average of 54.3 per cent across the 15 years CFIB has asked this question in surveys.
Diminished optimism is also present when the entrepreneurs looked out a year. The 55.4 per cent of B.
C. small business owners who said in October that they expected their business to fare better in 12 months was down from the 56.5 per cent one month earlier, and from an average of 67.
4 per cent since February 2009. What makes that low confidence level for a one-year outlook surprising is that B.C.
small-businesses owners have historically, on average, led all provinces with the most optimistic outlooks. “It's not just the comparison over time, it's a c.
