HALIFAX — When you line it up against other major Canadian cities, Halifax weathered the Covid-19 pandemic better than any other.
The city’s CAO and leaders from the Halifax Partnership gave an economic update to Halifax Regional Council this week — and it contained a fair amount of good news.
Jacques Dubé told council the city’s GDP contracted by 1.9 percent in 2020. That’s the lowest among major Canadian cities.
And projections show a strong GDP rebound is coming.
Dubé said Halifax’s GDP is expected to grow by 5.7 percent by the end of 2021, and then return to a “more normal” range of about 2 percent in the ensuing years.
The city also did very well attracting new residents during the pandemic.
Population growth in Halifax was down between July 2019 and June 2020 but only compared to the record-breaking previous year.
The period from 2019 to 2020 saw the city hit its second-highest level of population growth ever, driven largely by immigration.
Newly released population estimates for July 2020 to June 2021 also show strong population growth, although that is due more to people coming from other provinces, rather than other countries.
“What is different in this year is that international immigration, unsurprisingly, is down sharply while in-migration from other provinces, particularly Ontario, has jumped, Dube said.
Meanwhile, Halifax led Canadian cities in employment growth in early 2021. Unemployment did go up during the third wave in the spring but has since begun to drop again, sitting at 7.4 percent in August.
Long before the end of 2020, the city had also regained the jobs it lost at the beginning of the pandemic.
“In aggregate, we regained our Covid employment losses by the fall of 2020,” the Halifax Partnership’s Ian Munro said.
In May of 2020, Halifax had lost about 23,200 jobs. By September, it was already above pre-pandemic levels by 1,100 jobs.
Even after a dip during the third wave, Halifax still had 7,400 more jobs in August than it did before the pandemic hit.
There are, however, some concerning effects stemming from the city’s strong economic showing.
For one, house prices continue to rise sharply in Halifax.
The last few months had seen prices start to go down in the city. However, Munro pointed out the average cost of a home in September was just under $472,000. That’s a 6.6 percent jump from the month before, and well over 20 percent higher than September of last year.
The $472,000 price tag puts Halifax homes “close to the peak” of their highest prices ever.
Consumer goods are also getting more expensive. Halifax saw a year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 4.8 percent in August. The increase is 2.8 percent since January 2021.
Travel into the province is still lagging, as well.
Although not nearly as low as it was during the height of Covid-19, passenger counts at the Halifax airport remain well below pre-pandemic levels.
In August, 192,665 people passed through the airport. That’s compared to 486,551 who flew into or out of Halifax in August of 2019. There are still no cruise ship passengers coming to the city.
Overall, however, council appeared pleased with the news.
“It’s been great to see what’s happened in Halifax,” Mayor Mike Savage said after the presentation.
Trevor Nichols is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].
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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.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
