It has certainly been an interesting start to the year 2020! The first quarter of this year has drawn to a close and quarter two is starting off in chaos.
Our "global village" this year has been defined by COVID-19 and the profound affects it has had on people and societies around the world. The effects of this pandemic have been extremely far reaching in the first quarter of this year and will continue to have a profound impact for some time to come.
Back in July of 2019, I published the results of a small data mining exercise in the PataBid database to see how the economies of three provinces (BC, AB, ON) were stacking up. Tonight I decided to update the charts and analysis to see if COVID-19 has had any affects. Let's start with British Columbia (BC).
British Columbia (BC) was really where COVID-19 gained its initial attention in Canada. The effect on their economies future as measured by the average number of daily open tenders has been very pronounced. The average number of open tenders for the first portion of the year was very closely following the trend of 2019 with some minor growth. By March however, things began to slide and now by the end of this month we can see a very significant drop in the number of open tenders implying a significant slowdown in the economy. Moving east to Alberta (AB).
Alberta (AB) actually started this year with some strength! After a difficult 2019 where there was a fairly pronounced down trend in the available tenders, 2020 looked poised to have a significant recovery. Then again as was seen in BC, the month of March showed a marked decline in available tender opportunities. Overall, the volume of AB is still significantly lower than that of BC at this time and this trend looks poised to further reduce economic opportunity in AB. East again to Saskatchewan (SK).
Saskatchewan (SK) was not included in the initial article from 2019, but has been added to this article and due to its smaller tender population, SK will be more significantly impacted by changes. As can be seen here in the same manner as the previous provinces, March has shown a very significant drop in tender opportunities. Ending our trek east with Ontario (ON).
Ontario (ON) started 2020 with a bang. There was a significant increase in the available tender opportunities at the start of 2020 verses 2019. However, there has been a very significant slide in March. At this point, Ontario is still above the 2019 levels, and in fact, so far is the only province in our analysis in this position. The next few months will be very telling.
As can be seen above, there is a very profound impact to the economy happening right now. Much like the impact that COVID-19 is having on people's lives, this economic impact will be profound and the fallout of it will be at least as lasting as COVID-19 itself. We are rapidly reaching a point where a balance will have to be found between the fight against COVID-19 and the defense of our economy that supports that fight.
If you find this analysis to be revealing, please share it with your networks. The vast majority of our economy depends on tenders in some form.
The data for this blog post was collected using PataBid's public tender platform. Connect with us to find out how PataBid Tenders can become your source for bid opportunities!