The grumpy entrepreneurs

On the surface you would think that business leaders in New Brunswick should be tripping through the light fantastic. The population has been growing at an unprecedented rate. The number of job vacancies has dropped from 17,165 across the province in Q2 2022 to 14,885 in Q2 2023 even as the number of payroll employees expanded by over 10,600.

So why are so many business leaders grumpy?

Over the past 2-3 months I have talked and heard the opinions of more than 50 individual business leaders in New Brunswick at various venues and the vast majority of them were not particularly in a good mood. Some were complaining about government, of course - carbon tax, red tape, unfairness in policies, paperwork and time associated with bringing in foreign workers - the usual suspects.

But many were just complaining about how hard it has been to do business in New Brunswick. Upward cost pressures, productivity challenges - workforce challenges - from recruitment to wage increases to the difficulties of managing remote workers.

Of course every industry is different and when I attended the Moncton Chamber’s business awards event there was quite a bit of optimism in that room but even there a few folks I talked to had concerns.

Some are saying the challenging business environment is right now is making it hard to think about the future, planning for growth and making the investments needed now to position their firms moving forward.

This is a concern of mine. Non-residential investment by the business sector relative to GDP in 2021 was at the lowest level it has been in 40 years. This is likely due to the lack of large capital projects underway in the province (mines, energy projects, etc. tend to drive private CAPEX) but it is still concerning.

The other thing I keep hearing is that a lot of NB based firms are expanding outside New Brunswick. Not just their sales, they are building factories and buying firms and setting up new facilities in other provinces and states.

I have been clear on this point. If NB firms believe their best opportunities for expansion involve investing outside the province, that is fine (assuming they are investing outside to grow their business and not as a result of NB becoming uncompetitive). But we then need to think about where new investment here will come from. New startup firms? Attracting industry here to take advantage of specific opportunity? What?

I have said this province should be at the frontend of an exciting time. Unprecedented population growth, disruptive change in many industries leading to investment opportunities, the flow of international entrepreneurs into Canada - we should be able to capitalize.

But we will need less grumpy business leaders.

PS - I hope some jurisdictions in Canada is paying attention to the growth in Ozempic and other weight loss drugs. An expert on one podcast I listened suggested that Novo Nordisk could become the largest company in the world by market cap within a few years as hundreds of millions of people take the drugs to lose weight. I have to believe at least one manufacturing plant will be built in Canada within 1-2 years.