Our Business Data Lab on the Road

Our Business Data Lab (BDL) has been busy at home as well as on the road! In October, our Chief Economist, Stephen Tapp, visited Western Canada – Kelowna, Vancouver and Calgary. His tour started at the Southern Interior Regional Economic Summit, followed by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade and finishing up with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Stephen presented on Canada’s economic outlook – including sharing national and regional data trends from the newly launched Canada’s Workplace Mobility dashboard.

Not long after, our Senior Research Director, Marwa Abdou, presented at the 10^th annual Niagara Economic Summit in November to provide a national lens on the current economic climate for businesses including compounding cost pressures, competition for talent and ongoing supply chain obstacles.

Marwa also shared insights on short and near-term business expectations and perspectives from the third quarter release of the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions to board members at the Oakville Chamber of Commerce.

If you’re not familiar with our Business Data Lab, the BDL brings together data from a variety of sources to track evolving market conditions, providing Canadian businesses with critical information to help them make better decisions and improve their performance.

The Business Data Lab helps advance Canadian business success in three distinct ways:

👉Helps small businesses monitor market conditions in their region

👉Provides quarterly business surveys with insights that look at future trends

👉 Provides focused research into businesses’ specific needs and opportunities

In the BDL’s latest release of Canada’s New Workplace Mobility study, the Business Data Lab provides a comprehensive look across Canada at the new patterns of workplace mobility that have emerged since the pandemic began. Detailed results are provided for 13 provinces and territories, 153 Census Metropolitan Areas and 55 downtown centres. You can check out the BDL’s full report for all the details on their findings.

Alongside the report, the BDL also launched an interactive, customizable dashboard tool that allows users to easily generate insights for their locations of interest, and quickly compare regions. In addition to providing a visual depiction of new patterns of workplace mobility that have emerged since the pandemic began, the dashboard also provides comparative data on demographic indicators and some mobility drivers.

The BDL team will update the dashboard with the latest data each month and provide more insights and analysis in the months ahead. This user guide explains how to navigate the dashboard.

Check out these posts from the Roadshow! 👇

Interested in learning more about other BDL initiatives? Check out the BDL website here!