October 2011 Canadian Economic Fundamentals

[Ally]

Conference Board expects 2012 salaries jump



TORONTO ` Rising demand for people with skilled trades and other workers in Western Canada's booming oil and gas sector will push the national average wage up by more than three per cent next year, the Conference Board of Canada predicts.





It predicts Canada's average salary increase will be 3.1 per cent for 2012 -- up from the actual average gain of 2.7 per cent in 2010 and three per cent this year, the forecaster said in a compensation outlook report Tuesday.





"The signal is to people that are in the labour market already ... that they are, for next year, going to be receiving higher wage increases than they've seen for the last several years," said Karla Thorpe, the board's director of leadership and human resources research.





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[Ally]

Listings website pries open property data vault




Real estate information that was once almost impossible to get without the help of an agent is now available online, in yet another sign that the business of selling homes is rapidly changing.




Carefully guarded data on home appraisal values ` once the private preserve of real-estate industry insiders - has been posted by a listings website backed by Rogers Communications Inc., which has tapped private databases to give people an instant estimate of a property`s value.





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[Ally]

Central bank holds interest rate, warns of risks ahead




The Bank of Canada kept its key lending rate at 1 per cent on Tuesday, suggesting it believes the economy is still fragile and isn't ready for a bump in interest rates.




The decision marks the ninth consecutive time the central bank has kept the rate at just 1 per cent.




The statement that accompanied the interest rate announcement warned of gloomy days ahead and said Europe will most likely enter a brief recession.





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[Ally]

Forget 'blame Canada' - in fiscal mess, U.S. looks north for answers




There is a new refrain in Washington when it comes to that country to the north: Proclaim Canada.




As policymakers and pundits stew over how to solve America`s fiscal pickle, Canada`s name keeps turning up ` in a good way ` in conferences and conversations about how to shrink the scary-sized U.S. federal deficit.





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[Ally]

Canadian economy slowing to a crawl, says BoC





OTTAWA ` Battered by European debt woes and a global slowdown, Canada's economy is approaching stall speed as the year comes to a close but is likely to avoid an outright recession, predicts the Bank of Canada.



The central bank fleshed out its new outlook for the global and domestic economies Wednesday, saying Canada's growth rate will dip as low as 0.8 per cent in the last three months of the year, after rebounding somewhat to two per cent in the third quarter.




That's a massive downgrade from what the bank had been expecting for the second half of this year, when in June it predicted growth rates approaching three per cent.





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[Ally]

Canadians holding off on retirement




Canadians are delaying their retirement and staying on the job for longer, a trend that had profound implications for the country's current and future workforce.




A 50-year-old worker stayed in the labour force three and a half years longer in 2008 than in the mid-1990s, according to a Statistics Canada indicator that tracks peoples' retirement behaviour.





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[Ally]

Carney says Europe debt crisis critical for Canada




Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said Wednesday the European debt crisis is one of the biggest issues facing Canada's economy.




Carney said at a news conference Wednesday that Canada was working "intensely" with its European peers as the region tries to develop a strategy to shore up banks and debt-burdened economies.




He said the central bank's view is that Europe's debt crisis will be contained.




The European crisis and weakness in the U.S. economy will have an impact on Canada, Carney said, and if those issues worsen, the bank would "mark down" its estimate for domestic economic growth.



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