Business Confidence Slipping Among Provincial Owners

Two major concerns for small businesspeople in the province, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, are rising energy costs and upward pressure on wages. C-F-I-B policy analyst Richard Dunn tells CHSJ News the minimum wage in the province has gone up by 25 per cent in two years and that has had an adverse effect on hiring.

He says student employment is being impacted too with CFIB members in accomodations and food service scaling back hiring this year.



Small businesspeople in the province, 85 per cent of whom describe the state of business as being good or satisfactory, expect the yearly increase in wages to be around 1.8 per cent.