Shoppers at the Toronto Eaton Centre are seen in this file photo. Statistics Canada says GDP grew by 0.1 per cent November. The agency is forecasting flat growth for December.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
The Canadian economy is slowing quickly and risks a possible recession this year as the Bank of Canada hikes interest rates to tamp down excessive inflation.
Real gross domestic product rose 0.1 per cent in November, according to figures published Tuesday by Statistics Canada, with a preliminary estimate showing little change in December. All told, the economy grew at an annualized rate of 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter, based on that estimate, which will be updated near the end of February.
Despite the slowdown, the economy is showing resilience as it faces mounting headwinds. Growth in the final months of 2022 was stronger than what the Bank of Canada and several financial analysts had predicted. Notably, employers continued to hire workers in droves, which kept the unemployment rate near an all-time low.
Also on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected the global economy would grow by 2.9 per cent in 2023, an upward revision from its previous estimate of 2.7 per cent. The IMF said its outlook was “less gloomy” than in October, citing “surprisingly resilient” demand in the United States and Europe, along with China’s reopening from strict COVID-19 measures. Global growth should accelerate next year, the IMF said.
In the interim, countries such as Canada are experiencing a loss of momentum. The Canadian economy grew at annualized rates of 3.2 per cent in the second quarter and 2.9 per cent in the third quarter, before its slide to an estimated 1.6 per cent in the final three months of 2022. That trend of slowing growth should continue.
The Bank of Canada expects the economy to stall during the first half of 2023. It has not ruled out a mild recession, an outcome that many analysts on Bay Street are expecting.
“It’s just as likely that we’ll have two or three quarters of slightly negative growth as slightly positive growth,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said at a news conference last week. “So yes, it could be a mild recession. It’s not a major contraction.”
In November, 14 of 20 industrial sectors managed to post growth. Transportation and warehousing rose 1 per cent for the month, boosted by a 4.6-per-cent surge for air transportation. The finance and insurance sector jumped by 0.5 per cent, after three consecutive monthly declines. The public sector expanded by 0.3 per cent.
At the same time, there was contraction in rate-sensitive industries. Construction fell 0.7 per cent in November as residential building and repairs hit a weak spot.
Retailers fared poorly in November as the industry dropped 0.6 per cent. The declines were particularly large at stores selling food, building materials and general merchandise.
Restaurants and bars also had a rough month, posting a 2.9-per-cent contraction.
“While the Canadian economy hasn’t cooled as quickly as we (and others) previously expected given the rapid rise in interest rates, there are growing signs of fragility,” Andrew Grantham, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients.
He added: “The recovery in many services has slowed even with activity still well below pre-pandemic levels, and a dip in restaurant activity could be an early sign of consumers changing their behaviour in the face of inflationary pressures and rising interest rates.”
The Bank of Canada has raised interest rates at the fastest pace in a generation, taking its benchmark rate to 4.5 per cent from a pandemic low of 0.25 per cent in March, 2022. The central bank is intentionally trying to slow the economy and bring supply and demand into better balance to quell soaring rates of consumer price growth.
On that front, there has been recent progress. The annual rate of inflation has slowed to 6.3 per cent in December from a near four-decade high of 8.1 per cent in June. The central bank’s target is 2 per cent.
“Six-per-cent inflation is still way too high. Canadians are still feeling the pain of rapid increases in the cost of living,” Mr. Macklem said last week. “Economic developments have reinforced our confidence [that] inflation is coming down. But it’s going to take us a while to get there and the economy is going to be soft.”
After last week’s rate hike, the Bank of Canada is tentatively holding its benchmark rate at 4.5 per cent to assess whether its policies are restrictive enough to bring inflation back to target. It can take months, or even longer, for the full effects of higher interest rates to be felt. The bank cautioned that it would raise rates again if needed.
While growth could be sluggish to start the year, the Bank of Canada projects real GDP to expand 1 per cent in 2023. The IMF is projecting growth of 1.5 per cent in Canada, about the same as the United States.
OTTAWA – The federal government is expected to boost the minimum hourly wage that must be paid to temporary foreign workers in the high-wage stream as a way to encourage employers to hire more Canadian staff.
Under the current program’s high-wage labour market impact assessment (LMIA) stream, an employer must pay at least the median income in their province to qualify for a permit. A government official, who The Canadian Press is not naming because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the change, said Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault will announce Tuesday that the threshold will increase to 20 per cent above the provincial median hourly wage.
The change is scheduled to come into force on Nov. 8.
As with previous changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program, the government’s goal is to encourage employers to hire more Canadian workers. The Liberal government has faced criticism for increasing the number of temporary residents allowed into Canada, which many have linked to housing shortages and a higher cost of living.
The program has also come under fire for allegations of mistreatment of workers.
A LMIA is required for an employer to hire a temporary foreign worker, and is used to demonstrate there aren’t enough Canadian workers to fill the positions they are filling.
In Ontario, the median hourly wage is $28.39 for the high-wage bracket, so once the change takes effect an employer will need to pay at least $34.07 per hour.
The government official estimates this change will affect up to 34,000 workers under the LMIA high-wage stream. Existing work permits will not be affected, but the official said the planned change will affect their renewals.
According to public data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 183,820 temporary foreign worker permits became effective in 2023. That was up from 98,025 in 2019 — an 88 per cent increase.
The upcoming change is the latest in a series of moves to tighten eligibility rules in order to limit temporary residents, including international students and foreign workers. Those changes include imposing caps on the percentage of low-wage foreign workers in some sectors and ending permits in metropolitan areas with high unemployment rates.
Temporary foreign workers in the agriculture sector are not affected by past rule changes.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
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