Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
CFIB is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization representing more than 108,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Canada who collectively employ more than one and a quarter million Canadians and account for $75 billion in GDP. Our members represent all sectors of the economy and are found in every region of the country.
Almost all businesses in Canada are small or medium-sized, and they employ 64% of Canadians and produce half of Canada's GDP. As a result, in this year, the entrepreneurs addressing issues of importance to them can have a widespread impact on our job creation and the economy.
I'm hoping we have a slide deck that I asked to be passed around that I would like to walk you through as we go through this presentation. No? Okay. I'll try to speak to the issues as they come up.
Our most recent business barometer showed that small business confidence took a bit of a tumble in August as the global economic outlook started to weaken, but it's still nowhere near where it was in 2008 and 2009. September saw a slight upward trend, indicating that small business owners are getting by but are remaining cautious about their future.
Recently, CFIB released a report. It was entitled “Survival of the Smallest”, and I'm hoping you'll be able to get a copy. We found that small businesses manage recession in a variety of ways. You'll see that on slide 3, once you do have a copy of the presentation, that laying people off was certainly an issue in many small businesses. However, small business owners were much more likely to work longer hours, sell to new customers in the local market, introduce new products and services, and even cut their own salary before resorting to layoffs. Interestingly, this report also identified a group of small business owners, about 20%, who grew their businesses during the recession. We called them growth-oriented enterprises, or GOEs. About one-third of this group increased the number of employees during the recession. In addition, more than one-third sold to new customers in other countries, and almost two-thirds sold to new customers in other provinces or in their local markets. They also introduced new products and services, expanded their online presence, and increased their advertising and promotional efforts.
A key finding from this report was learning about those measures that can help small business owners maintain or strengthen their business during more difficult economic times. As you can see--it would be on slide 5--freezing EI premiums was the most important, for both--