2013 was a year of growth for local businesses in the Friendly City but it was also an unstable year for the local housing industry.

The Moose Jaw and District Chamber of Commerce is reporting 249 new businesses in our city, as of the end of November. Very good numbers according to CEO Brian Martynook considering that for all of 2012, there were 185 new businesses.

However, Martynook says not all economic indicators faired so well. "New dwellings for 2012 was 132 starts and for 2013 we had 83 so that's a reduction of 49 and that affects a lot of the contractors and subcontractors."

While new dwellings were down there was a lot of construction activity in the city, so the numbers could be misleading. A number of multi-family projects were started including a very large project on the south side of the city heading to 15 Wing.

A recent survey of Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce is reporting that 61% of members who responded saw an increase in business last year with 87% saying they had the same or even more employees than they did in 2012.

Right now, the Moose Jaw Chamber is looking to collect similar data through their annual survey. Local businesses are asked to return the survey by next week.