‘Ticking of the demographic time bomb’ may be biggest force looming on Canada’s horizon
In December, I used Montreal-based New Look Vision Group Inc. as an example of the sort of confidence that could explain the unexpected surge in business investment during the third quarter.Unlike, say, the automobile industry, the future burns bright for optometry. Almost everyone acquires presbyopia by middle age and the population is quickly aging.
A better way to think about the year ahead is to contemplate the extent to which a handful of meta-forces will disrupt our best efforts to predict the next 12 months to the tenth decimal point. Many of these calculations are based on how economies have behaved in decades past, and we know that a handful of new phenomena, such as a planet seized by climate change, will have structural implications not seen before. Forecasting the years ahead calls for risk management, not one-way bets.
There’s little reason to expect those trends will reverse. Unlike the United States and Europe, Canadian immigration policy is tilted to receiving more newcomers, not fewer. And there’s lots of work: StatCan’s quarterly surveys of hiring intentions consistently put the number of unfilled positions at far more than 500,000. The shortage of workers partly explains why wages have started to rise after years of stagnation.
Current immigration rates won’t stop Canada from joining the club of “super-aged societies,” as the Royal Bank analysis predicts about a quarter of the population will be seniors in 2030, compared with about 17 per cent currently. Unless those men and women decide to work into their 70s, the economy will fundamentally change. Consumption patterns will shift and demand for government services will increase. The Royal Bank study predicts there will be 1.
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