Looked it up for Canada. 54% of all private employers are companies of 1-4 people.
"Of the 1,167,978 employer businesses active in Canada, micro-enterprises (firms with 1 to 4 employees) constitute 54.1 percent of all private employers, which is the largest SME group."
You're not wrong about the stat, but I'd also point out that we have a political system that isn't as easily manipulated by big companies, meaning there's less power/incentive to be a big company (such as there is in the US).
Canadians seem to distrust big companies more than Americans do.
I would point out the fragmentation of workers is multivariate far beyond just the single payer + single provider healthcare system .
I don't think it's as complicated as all that. I am in Canada and the truth is with 35 million people, you just aren't going to have giant companies with 10,000+ staff. Outside of a few companies in oil+gas, forestry, transport, telecom and banks, most companies can get by with a few hundred employees.
Of course, some of Canada's globally renowned companies have faded too. Blackberry used to employ 14,000 people in Canada as recently as 2011, but they're probably about 20% of that size today.
"Of the 1,167,978 employer businesses active in Canada, micro-enterprises (firms with 1 to 4 employees) constitute 54.1 percent of all private employers, which is the largest SME group."
https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_03018.html#table...