Q1 2020 - A look at job creation in the Atlantic Canadian Startup Ecosystem - Concrete Ventures
Job Creation

Q1 2020 – A look at job creation in the Atlantic Canadian Startup Ecosystem

Patrick Hankinson

Published April 3, 2020
Job creation Q1 2021

The Q4 2019 job creation data shows a large reduction of jobs in the startup ecosystem in Atlantic Canada. The number of jobs declined by about 350, bringing the number of employed by the sector to 7,950. I anticipated that trend to continue in Q1 2020 with the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, a number of startups continued to hire in Q1 2020. About 261 net new jobs were created across 978 startups. The total amount employed in the startup scene reached 8,211. I believe most of the hiring happened in January and February then stalled out in March.

The job creation data reveals a number of startups that did lay off employees in industries that were hard hit by COVID-19 such as travel, hospitality, sports, etc… It seems the layoffs didn’t really hit hard in other industries, but I anticipate that will happen in Q2 2020. I’ve already received reports of a number of layoffs in April.