by Kianna Holland
Inflations Impact
Inflation is affecting Ontario drastically with rising costs of goods and services resources that we heavily rely on. Inflation has increasingly grown higher as years go by, and the cost of living in Ontario has skyrocketed over the period. Inflation has affected people’s daily routines, preventing them from simply going for a coffee run or getting a haircut with the prices constantly rising. The economy in Ontario is facing a shortage of food resources due to inflation. People depend on living costs to manage their bills and the resources they need to survive. The inflation in Ontario rose from 4% in August declining to 3.1 in October 2023. The decline helps with maintaining household owners and bank corporations. Inflation is responsible for food, shelter and gasoline, the main portion of inflation is housing where half of the city is affected by the cost rates. Inflation influences almost everything but how have small businesses been impacted by inflation?
Small Business Affect on Inflation
Small businesses are impacted by inflation with cash flow demands and shortages of products. Owning your own business requires maintaining the responsibility for the cost of supplies, customer service and products to meet the demands. Inflation businesses are struggling to reach their requirements. The impact of inflation made independent businesses lose their company due to the pressure of meeting their budget. If the inflation cost rises for the small business, then the more expensive businesses will be which causes them to struggle with sales because the prices are too high. Inflation affects small businesses through the rise of utility costs, higher rises in products, rent increases and transportation costs to drive their company back. Also, it affects business owners with limited access to hire people, cutting expenses, layoffs of staff, and overtime hours from employers. These are some of the examples of how much impact small inflation has on small independent businesses to have to change their protocols to follow the pressure of demands through inflation. Some businesses are successful in maintaining the budget through inflation Jezreel, a barber who owns his owns his shop, has experienced the effect of inflation but still survives through his supportive community.
Jezreel experience
Jezreel is an entrepreneur of his barbershop who has been a barber since he was age of 15, Jezreel branch on to his own business owning his store in 2007. He created a welcoming environment within his barbershop that had people gravitate towards getting their hair done from good experiences, which made a community within Scarborough. However, inflation started to rise in early 2022 when every self-employed owner was affected by the increased cost. Self-owned owners as well as Jezreel have to implement inflation protocol into their businesses to meet the demands. Jezreel had to change his work protocol by increasing his costs and minimizing his resources to meet his budget. The inflation even made him have to cut off some of his coworkers so the company could support the demands. Self-owned businesses surround the barbershop and even Jezreel noticed they were getting affected by it as well with them putting the prices up. The communities that he gained through his barbershop thankfully understand that he had to change the price because everyone was getting affected by inflation in their personal life Jezreel continues to prosper by creating a positive atmosphere through his work with clients to make an enjoyable for them and as well for his coworkers. He also has customers who stayed from the start of his career. Jezreel has a positive outlook on life where he believes that even if he is affected by inflation, he won't let that get to him as he believes that his hard work will pay off in the end.
Quote
Jezreel states "Inflation has affected our business in terms of the cost of doing business by having the domino effect with the cost to get materials, the cost of operating, all these things went up, because of that, we've had to, fortunately, increase our prices for our services. So, clients receive costs being raised for our services, so it just translates to how much more they have to pay for our services. I've always heard that our business is a recession-proof business because people always need their hair cut, which is great"
Hope for the future
The ongoing issue of inflation has impacted us in everything including even through our lifestyle. It has also affected self-owned businesses with how they have changed their protocol to meet their demands for their profit. Jezreel is just one of the people who has experienced the effect of inflation and who is just passing by to maintain his profit, there are a lot of small businesses that are facing the same situation as Jezreel. Inflation is declining, which give hope to small company owner to thrive again.
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