Canada’s households are beginning to buckle amid the weight of rising prices, higher interest rates and a housing correction
While economists have been revising down their growth forecasts in recent weeks, Canada’s economy is still seen growing at a relatively robust pace of about two per cent over the next couple of years.
Every week, Nanos Research surveys 250 Canadians for their views on personal finances, job security, the economy and real-estate prices. Bloomberg publishes four-week rolling averages of the 1,000 telephone responses.Article content The gauge fell to 48.3 last week, the lowest since July 2020. Since polling began in 2008, the index has only fallen below 50 during the depths of the pandemic and the financial crisis and recession in 2008 and 2009.Peculiarly, the slump in confidence comes even as job security remains elevated. Only nine per cent of Canadians say they worry about losing their job, reflecting a tight labour market that has seen the jobless rate fall to the lowest in five decades.
Nor has there been any evidence yet of any significant slowdown in activity. For example, retail spending is still growing at a strong pace.Consumer price inflation has accelerated to a four-decade high, and the Bank of Canada has embarked on one of the most aggressive monetary policy tightening cycles in its history. The elevated housing values, meanwhile, that have been important drivers of confidence over the last two years have begun to dip.