Canada in the midst of a home and repair boom: report

TORONTO—A new report from Square, a financial services and technology company, shows the home and repair industry has seen a 64 per cent rise in transactions over the course of the pandemic from services including home furnishing, cleaning, landscaping, maintenance and repair. 

Square analyzed three years worth of data from Canadian businesses using Square’s payments and point-of-sales services within the home and repair industry through April 2021 to determine just how big the boom has been, states a release.

Saskatchewan leads the country with a 116 per cent increase in home and repair transactions from April 2020 to April 2021 compared to the previous year. New Brunswick also saw a significant 104 per cent growth and Nova Scotia’s demand is up 79 per cent. It’s a different story in the province of Alberta, with the province experiencing a decrease of 10 per cent.

“We’ve seen growth across all types of home and repair projects in Canada, from projects in the yard to large-scale renovations, much of it the result of people spending so much more time at home since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Felipe Chacon, economist at Square, in a statement. “We knew demand in the industry has been increasing, and our research found that to be true across almost the entire country.”