By Barbara Yaff, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
The Vancouver area is poised to be the fastest-growing metropolitan economy in Canada this year. And next year. And the year after. And even the year after that.
By Barbara Yaff, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
The Vancouver area is poised to be the fastest-growing metropolitan economy in Canada this year. And next year. And the year after. And even the year after that.
According to a just-released report from the Conference Board of Canada, titled Economic Insights into 13 Canadian Metropolitan Economies, the Vancouver area’s real GDP growth between now and 2019 is on track to be best-in-show, annually hovering between three and 3.5 per cent.
Vancouver, it appears, has sidelined that once-prosperous civic darling, Calgary, which lately has been nursing economic wounds flowing from lower energy prices. Unlike Calgary, Vancouver has one of the most strongly diversified economies in the country, helping sustain its numero uno status.
Even as forestry — that traditional bulwark of B.C.’s economy — is in a downturn due to the pine beetle chomping into timber supplies, the economy here is not skipping a beat.
Vancouverites may have a hard time believing in their own economic supremacy given this area’s history of trailing several Prairie cities. And Vancouver has long been put to shame by Calgary’s prowess in attracting corporate head offices.
Then, too, a lot of folks here may not be personally feeling fiscally frisky because of their own debts, linked to steep housing costs.
But the proof is in the pudding. And, incredibly, by 2018, Metro Vancouver’s unemployment rate is expected to fall to an unheard of 4.9 per cent before dipping lower, to 4.7 per cent, in 2019.
That’s down from six per cent this year. Four to six per cent generally is considered “full employment.”
The big story behind the Vancouver numbers is manufacturing, boosted by an $8-billion federal contract for non-combat ships awarded to Seaspan in North Vancouver. The sector grew modestly last year, by 2.6 per cent. But with the Seaspan work starting last June, manufacturing output is slated to surge 8.6 per cent this year.
The Conference Board notes growing U.S. demand, linked to a depressed Canadian dollar, is boosting B.C. exports, further fuelling the manufacturing boom.
The construction industry has been another bright spot. A 4.9 per cent annual growth rate is expected to zoom to 7.4 per cent in 2016, because of activity both in the residential and non-residential sectors. “The strength of the overall economy and suspected foreign investment have been helping to drive demand,” says the Conference Board.
Other areas lately firing on all cylinders include wholesale and retail trade, finance, insurance, and the real estate and business services sectors.
The happy tidings extend to per capita incomes as well as population and job growth.
Personal incomes are expected to increase at a clip of about three per cent per year to $47,900 by 2019, from $42,500 this year.
Those living in Vancouver, Delta and on the North Shore are the highest income earners in the region, according to the Conference Board, with Vancouverites and Delta residents reporting average per capita incomes in the range of $44,000. Incomes of North Vancouverites are roughly $50,700 and West Vancouverites, nearly $79,000. Lowest incomes recorded per tax filer were found in Richmond, at $33,300.
Metro Vancouver’s population will continue its expansion, with a steady stream of immigrants joining a growing number of migrants from other provinces. Until a couple of years ago, Vancouver had been experiencing net out-migration.
All these things, in turn, will keep retail spending at healthy levels — welcome news for a bevy of luxury shops that have opened here in the past few years.