The Canadian Taskforce for Women’s Business Growth releases new report!
The Canadian Taskforce for Women's Business Growth is a national and non-partisan consortium of prominent female business owners, small-business service agencies, academics and industry associations. Founded in 2009, the Taskforce aims to accelerate the growth of women’s enterprises through the creation of appropriate public policy, advocacy, research, and sharing of best practices.
In 2010 and 2011, the Taskforce for Women’s Business Growth initiated a series of roundtables across Canada to identify policies and programs to speed the growth and success of women business owners and self-employed workers. The roundtable in Halifax was held at Mount Saint Vincent University with participation from the Centre for Women in Business. The Centre, created in 1992, was as a result of research done by the Mount indicating the challenges that women faces when starting and growing their own businesses.
The Taskforce is calling for a concerted effort to mobilize this underdeveloped segment of our economy through a five-point strategy. The strategy consists of:
- Creating a national women-focused economic development strategy
- Creating business-stimulation programs to develop new markets and grow globally
- Creating and implementing measureable supplier-diversity procurement objectives for all federal agencies and departments
- Enhancing women’s financial literacy and their awareness of gender influences in firm capitalization through training and other incentives
- Increasing the adoption of technology in women-led firms through training and other incentives
Did You Know?
Industry Canada reports that, in 2007, 47 percent of Canada’s 1.6 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were wholly or partly owned by women, and sixteen percent of Canadian SMEs were exclusively owned by women. In addition, more than 900,000 of the 2.6 million self-employed workers in Canada are women. However, the average revenue of majority female-owned firms was $563,000 compared with $1,126,000 for majority male-owned firms.
Click here to download the full report!