A new survey from Statistics Canada focused on businesses in Canada’s rural* areas found that “rising inflation was the most commonly expected short-term obstacle among rural businesses in the third quarter of 2022 at 62.7%.”

Urban businesses were not far behind with 54.9% citing inflation as a concern.

With inflation pushing up input costs, “similar proportions of rural businesses and urban businesses had plans to increase their prices within the next three months (33.7% to 34.1%).”

Rising interest rates and debt costs were seen as obstacles by 42.5% of rural businesses while 35.8% of urban businesses were in this camp.

The survey also asked about plans to use technology to address labour shortages and found that “rural businesses (8.3%) were less likely than urban businesses (11.5%) to be somewhat or very likely to adopt automation and digital technologies that may reduce their hiring over the next 12 months.”

Some industries were more likely to be considering new technology to reduce hiring than others with rural businesses in the manufacturing sector topping the list at 21.5% followed by health care and social assistance (15.3%); finance and insurance (14.6%); agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (13.3%); and mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (11.8%).

*Businesses located in census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations are classified as “urban” and all others as “rural.” The survey was conducted from July 4 to August 8, 2022.

Answer to the previous trivia question: According to the dailyhive.com, L’Auberge Saint-Gabriel in Montreal, Quebec opened in 1754 and is the oldest functioning restaurant in Canada.

Today’s trivia question: Not including the territories, which province has the largest land area?