The average family Canadian income is $70,400 according to data from income tax returns filed in the spring of 2007. In general, the data shows that for 2006, the largest percentage increases in median total family income occurred mainly in metropolitan areas and areas associated with primary industries, particularly in Alberta and British Columbia.

Total family income included employment income, investment income, government transfers, pension income and other income. The median is the point where half of the families’ incomes are higher and half are lower.

Among metropolitan areas, the largest median total family income was found in Calgary with an average family income of $90,700, an increase of 6.9 percent. Large increases were also found in Edmonton, Vancouver and Kelowna.

Among areas associated with primary industries, the largest increases in median total family income were found in Grande Prairie (+8.6%), Lloydminster (+8.4%), and Camrose (+8.0%).

Note:Families consist of a married/common law couple and their children all living in the same dwelling. Income data is after receipt of government transfers and before the payment of income tax. All data for previous years has been adjusted for inflation.

Canadian Average Family Income
2006

3 Jul 2008

Each month, the Canadian Real Estate Association compiles statistics of existing homes and properties sold. For May, the average price of a house sold in Canada was $318,761, an increase of 1.8 percent over the year. The residential average price is forecast to rise 5.3 percent in 2008 and a further 4.2 percent next year, pushing prices to new heights. Price gains are predicted to become smaller as the resale housing market becomes more balanced. The market is forecast to remain tightest in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and as a result price increases there are expected to be biggest.

House Prices In Canada
May 2008

2 Jul 2008

The average weekly earnings of employees (full-time and part-time) stood at $789.99 in April, up 0.3 percent from March according to figures fron Statistics Canada. Compared with a year earlier, average weekly earnings were up 3.2 percent.

In Canada’s largest industrial sectors, earnings rose 4.0 percent in health and social assistance, 3.0 percent in manufacturing, 2.7 percent in retail trade, and 1.9 percent in educational services compared with a year earlier.

Alberta and Saskatchewan had the strongest year-over-year earnings growth of all provinces at 6.0 percent and 5.4 percent respectively.

The average hourly earnings for hourly paid employees edged up from $19.82 in March to $19.85 in April.

Canadian Average Weekly Earnings By Province
April 2008

Canadian Average Weekly Earnings By Industry
April 2008

29 Jun 2008

Following two months of small increases, Canadian employment was unchanged in May, and the unemployment rate remained at 6.1%. Over the past 12 months, data from Statistics Canada show that employment in Canada has risen by 2.0 percent. Despite slower employment growth in recent months, the participation rate remained at its record high of 68.0 percent in May.

Manufacturing employment rose in May, mainly in Ontario and Quebec. Employment across Canada in this industry has trended downward since November 2002. Health care and social assistance, as well as “other services” added employment in May, while agriculture and professional, scientific and technical services recorded losses.

Quebec
In Quebec, after two consecutive months of declines, employment rose by 18,000 in May. With an increase in the number of Quebecers in the labour market, the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.5 percent. Employment growth over the last 12 months in the province stands at 1.2 percent, below the national rate of growth.

Employment in Quebec’s manufacturing industry increased in May (+14,000). While manufacturing employment has declined by 124,000 since November 2002, over the past 12 months, this sector has been stable with growth in transportation equipment offsetting losses in textile and clothing manufacturing.

With a slight increase in May, Ontario’s employment growth over the past 12 months was 2.2 percent. Losses in educational services in May were offset by gains in manufacturing.

Newfoundland & Labrador
In Newfoundland and Labrador, the employment rate rose to an all-time high of 52.8 percent in May. Over the past 12 months, employment growth was 2.9 percent, one of the fastest rates of growth in the country.

Manitoba
Following strong gains the month before, employment in Manitoba declined in May, pushing the unemployment rate up to 4.2 percent, still among the lowest in Canada. Employment in this province has increased by 1.5 percent in the past 12 months.

New Brunswick
In May, employment in New Brunswick declined (-4,400), bringing the unemployment rate up to 8.9 percent. In 2007, employment followed an upward trend; so far this year, however, growth has slowed.

Alberta
Although unchanged in May, employment in Alberta has increased 3.3 percent over the past 12 months, the strongest growth rate in Canada. As a result of increased participation in the labour market, the unemployment rate rose in May to 3.6 percent, still the lowest in Canada.

Strong employment growth for adult women
In May, employment among adult women rose by 35,000, mostly in part time. An increase of 52,000 women in the labour market boosted their participation rate to an all-time high of 62.4 percent in May.

18 Jun 2008

Following two months of small increases, Canadian employment was unchanged in May, and the unemployment rate remained at 6.1%, according to figures from Statistics Canada. Over the past 12 months, employment in Canada has risen by 2.0 percent. Despite slower employment growth in recent months, the participation rate remained at its record high of 68.0 percent in May.

Manufacturing employment rose in May, mainly in Ontario and Quebec. Employment across Canada in this industry has trended downward since November 2002. Health care and social assistance, as well as “other services” added employment in May, while agriculture and professional, scientific and technical services recorded losses.

Quebec
In Quebec, after two consecutive months of declines, employment rose by 18,000 in May. With an increase in the number of Quebecers in the labour market, the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.5 percent. Employment growth over the last 12 months in the province stands at 1.2 percent, below the national rate of growth.

Employment in Quebec’s manufacturing industry increased in May (+14,000). While manufacturing employment has declined by 124,000 since November 2002, over the past 12 months, this sector has been stable with growth in transportation equipment offsetting losses in textile and clothing manufacturing.

With a slight increase in May, Ontario’s employment growth over the past 12 months was 2.2 percent. Losses in educational services in May were offset by gains in manufacturing.

Newfoundland & Labrador
In Newfoundland and Labrador, the employment rate rose to an all-time high of 52.8 percent in May. Over the past 12 months, employment growth was 2.9 percent, one of the fastest rates of growth in the country.

Manitoba
Following strong gains the month before, employment in Manitoba declined in May, pushing the unemployment rate up to 4.2 percent, still among the lowest in Canada. Employment in this province has increased by 1.5 percent in the past 12 months.

New Brunswick
In May, employment in New Brunswick declined (-4,400), bringing the unemployment rate up to 8.9 percent. In 2007, employment followed an upward trend; so far this year, however, growth has slowed.

Alberta
Although unchanged in May, employment in Alberta has increased 3.3 percent over the past 12 months, the strongest growth rate in Canada. As a result of increased participation in the labour market, the unemployment rate rose in May to 3.6 percent, still the lowest in Canada.

Strong employment growth for adult women
In May, employment among adult women rose by 35,000, mostly in part time. An increase of 52,000 women in the labour market boosted their participation rate to an all-time high of 62.4 percent in May.

18 Jun 2008

Manpower Inc. has released the results of its third annual talent shortage survey, revealing that 31 percent of employers across the globe are finding it more difficult to fill jobs.

The top ten workers most in-demand in Canada are:

Canada

1. Skilled Manual Trades (primarily carpenters/jointers, welders or electricians)
2. Sales Representatives
3. Engineers
4. Accounting & Finance Staff
5. Labourers
6. Nurses
7. Teachers
8. Drivers
9. Machinists/Machine Operators
10. Secretaries, PAs, Administrative Assistants & Office Support Staff

The percentage of employers surveyed in Canada indicating that they are having difficulty filling positions was down from 36% in 2007 to 31% this year.

8 Jun 2008

In 2006, Canada’s homeownership rate reached its highest level since 1971, according to date from the 2006 Census. Of the 12.4 million households in Canada, more than 8.5 million, over two-thirds owned their home, the highest rate since 1971. At the same time, the proportion of Canadian households that rented their home slipped from 34 percent in 2001 to 31 percent in 2006. About 3.9 million households rented their home in 2006.

The increase during the five-year period continues the long-term trend in rising homeownership that picked up in 1991 after a period of low growth during the 1980s.

Households in the Atlantic provinces continued to have the highest homeownership rates in the country in 2006. Those in Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest rate, 79 percent. Households in Quebec had the lowest provincial rate at 60 percent.

The median selling price Canadian homeowners would expect to receive for their dwellings rose from $134,240 in 2001 to $200,474 in 2006, a 49 percent increase. Over the same period, consumer prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index increased by 11.3 percent.

More homeowners with a mortgage
Nearly 6 out of every 10 households that owned their home had a mortgage in 2006. Provincially, Alberta had the highest proportion of households with a mortgage (62%) and Newfoundland and Labrador had the lowest proportion (45%).

Condominiums driving homeownership
The census counted 913,000 households that owned a condominium in 2006, up 37 percent from five years earlier. The increase in condominium owners during this period accounted for one-quarter of the increase in the number of Canadian households that owned their dwelling.

Rates of condominium ownership were highest in the four British Columbia metropolitan areas. Condo owners accounted for 31 percent of owner households in Vancouver in 2006, 24 percent in Abbotsford, 21 percent in Victoria and 21 percent in Kelowna.

Shelter costs increasing faster than the CPI
For renter households, median annual shelter costs rose by 12.8 percent between 2001 and 2006. Over the same period, consumer prices increased by 11.3 percent. For owner households, spending on shelter increased by 21.6 percent, almost twice the increase in consumer prices.

In 2006, the median annual shelter cost for renter households was $8,057. For owner households with a mortgage, it was $15,150.

Percentage spending 30% or more on shelter edges up
In 2006, an estimated 3.0 million households, or 24.9 percent of the total, spent 30 percent or more of their income on shelter. This was up marginally from 24.1 percent in 2001, but was lower than the high of 26.6 percent in 1996 at the end of the economic downturn experienced in the early 1990s.

Renter households had a higher share of households spending 30% or more on shelter — 40.3 percent in 2006, compared with 39.6 percent in 2001.

Homeowners had a lower share at 17.8 percent of these households in 2006, up from 16.0 percent five years earlier.

4 Jun 2008

Saskatchewan and Newfoundland & Labrador have stepped into a new era of prosperity, according to a study released in the Canadian Economic Observer. The ongoing commodity boom, starting in 2002, offered a unique opportunity for these two provinces to tap into their natural resources as never before. Driven by export growth, notably that of crude oil, Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy led the nation in terms of growth in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007, at 13.4 percent. Saskatchewan followed with growth of 11.4 percent, ahead of Alberta’s 8.3 percent.

Newfoundland & Labrador’s growth in nominal GDP of 76 percent between 2002 and 2007 also topped Alberta’s gain of 73 percent. Saskatchewan posted the third highest gain over the period, its GDP advancing 49 percent.

In terms of GDP per capita, Newfoundland & Labrador has registered the largest turnaround in one decade in Canadian history. In 1997, it was $10,000 below the Canada average, and as recently as 2005 it remained below average. But in 2007, it jumped to $57,348, over $10,000 above the Canada average of $46,441.

Alberta ($74,825), Newfoundland & Labrador and Saskatchewan ($51,327) were the only three provinces where GDP per capita was above average in 2007.

Oil
Higher crude oil prices have been driving the boom in Newfoundland & Labrador and Saskatchewan. They are the top producers of crude petroleum in Canada after Alberta, accounting for almost one-third of Canada’s production.

Exports
Newfoundland & Labrador’s international exports soared 20 percent in 2007, the most rapid growth of any province. Between 2002 and 2007, exports doubled to reach $12 billion, as prices rose for Newfoundland & Labrador’s energy products and metals.

In 2007, Saskatchewan exported $21 billion to other countries, a 13 percent increase over 2006. This placed Saskatchewan behind only Newfoundland & Labrador for the title of fastest growing provincial exports. In addition to crude oil, agricultural products, potash, and uranium have made major gains since 2005.

Population
Perhaps most significantly, both Newfoundland & Labrador and Saskatchewan have reversed their long-term trend of a declining population. In the last two quarters of 2007, the number of people moving into Newfoundland & Labrador was the highest that it had been in 30 years. At the same time, out-migration slowed, resulting in the population increasing for the first time in 15 years.

Saskatchewan’s population grew 0.8 percent in 2007, its first increase in over a decade, which put the population once again to 1 million. Moreover, the population of the 15 and over age group in Saskatchewan in April 2008 was 2.0 percent larger than it was in April 2007. This was just slightly slower than the 2.2 percent year-over-year increase in Alberta.

Incomes
As incomes have risen and population growth has resumed, Newfoundland & Labrador and Saskatchewan consumers have gone on a buying binge, leading provincial growth in retail, housing and auto sales.

26 May 2008

A study published by Statistics Canada provides insights into the changing fortunes of immigrants in Canada.

The study found that instability in earnings for immigrants usually declines substantially after they have spent several years in Canada. This is consistent with the view that during the first several years in Canada, immigrants move more frequently from one job to another, or have part-time or temporary jobs. As they gain experience in Canada, immigrants are likely to find more stable employment.

The study is also the first to compare the earnings instability of immigrants who arrived in Canada in the 1980s with that of immigrants who arrived in Canada in 1990s. For example, based on the earnings in the four years after landing, the earnings instability of immigrants who came to Canada between 1998 and 2000 was substantially higher than the earnings instability of those who came to Canada between 1980 and 1982.

In the past, immigrants who came to Canada in their 40s had higher earnings instability than young immigrants. However, the earnings instability of young immigrants who came to Canada in the late 1990s was almost as high as the earnings instability of immigrants in their 30s and 40s who came to Canada during the same period.

The study found that earnings inequality rose among recent immigrants over the last two decades, consistent with previous studies that documented the evolution of earnings inequality for all Canadian workers.

Although foreign education, the ability to speak one of the official languages and birthplace accounts for a large part of immigrants’ earnings inequality (up to 44 percent), much of it remains unexplained by these factors.

The birthplace of immigrants seems to have had a stronger impact on earnings inequality than other factors considered in the study, such as foreign education and ability to speak English or French.

26 May 2008

A new report analysing the labour market for immigrants in 2007 showed that employment for immigrants aged 25 to 54 reached nearly 2.5 million. Full-time employment, which accounted for 90 percent of those jobs, increased 3.0 percent. Despite this increase, the employment rate gap between immigrants and the Canadian born widened.

While the immigrant employment rate edged up 0.2 percentage points to 77.9 percent, the employment rate for the Canadian born rose by 0.7 percentage points to 83.8 percent.

In 2007, the employment rate rose faster for the Canadian born, as their employment growth greatly outpaced their population growth, while immigrant employment increases did not match their population gains. The end result was that the employment rate gap between immigrants and the Canadian born widened from 5.4 percentage points in 2006 to 5.9 percentage points in 2007.

The unemployment rate among core working-age immigrants edged up from 6.5 percent to 6.6 percent, which was higher than the rate of 4.6 percent among the Canadian born.

Almost all of the employment growth for immigrants in 2007 occurred among established immigrants, namely those who had been in Canada for more than 10 years. Gains for very recent immigrants, those in the country for five years or less, were relatively small. Despite a dip in the unemployment rate of these very recent immigrants, the rate remained more than double that of the Canadian born.

Quebec
Although employment increased substantially for immigrants living in Quebec, unemployment among them was still high in the province.

Over half (+28,000) of the growth in employment for Canadian immigrants in 2007 took place in Quebec. Their unemployment rate also fell from 12.0 percent to 10.2 percent. In contrast, the unemployment rate for the Canadian born in Quebec was 5.6 percent.

In Quebec, gains among immigrants accounted for three-quarters of the province’s total annual employment growth. Quebec was the only province where the majority of employment growth came from their core working-age immigrant population in 2007.

More than three-quarters of employment growth for immigrants in Quebec in 2007 occurred among established immigrants, who saw their employment increase by an estimated 22,000, all in full-time work. As a result, the employment rate for established immigrants rose from 76.8 percent to 78.7 percent. Virtually all of this growth was for established immigrant men and women born in Asia.

Alberta
Immigrants in Alberta benefited from the strong labour market in the oil-rich province. Their employment growth in 2007 was the second highest among the provinces at 8.4 percent (+18,000), with almost all the gains in full-time jobs.

Ontario
In Ontario, however, the entire core working-age population experienced its slowest overall employment growth so far this decade. In 2007, Ontario immigrants experienced only modest gains in employment (+0.3%).

Transportation and accommodation & food services industries
As was the case for the Canadian born, most employment growth for immigrants aged 25 to 54 was in the service sector, although the growth occurred in different industries.

Immigrants made notable gains in transportation (+19,000) and accommodation and food services (+15,000). For the Canadian born, the largest gains were in public administration, professional, scientific and technical services, as well as finance, insurance, real estate and leasing.

Goods sector
In the goods sector, Canadian-born workers saw construction employment expand and manufacturing employment shrink. Immigrants recorded a modest decline in construction and a small gain in manufacturing.

Educational background
University-educated immigrants of core working age had the largest gains in immigrant employment, with an estimated gain of 62,000 (+7.0%), all in full-time work.

In contrast, the vast majority of employment growth for the Canadian born was among those with a post-secondary certificate or diploma.

Older migrants show gains in employment
Among the various age groups, older immigrants aged 55 and over posted very strong gains. Their employment increased 9.3 percent, overshadowing the pace of 6.5 percent for Canadian-born older workers. Among young immigrants aged 15 to 24, employment rose 2.0 percent, virtually the same rate as for Canadian-born youth.

Asian-born immigrants
Employment grew by an estimated 53,000 (+4.9%) for Asian-born immigrants aged 25 to 54, overwhelmingly in full-time positions. Among this Asian-born population, unemployment and employment rates of those born in the Philippines were particularly robust. Overall employment for Filipinos grew by 8.3 percent, virtually all in full time. Their overall employment rate increased to 88.9 percent, higher than the rates for both the Canadian born and immigrants of other source countries.

European immigrants
Overall, European-born immigrants are, second to Asians, the largest group of immigrants to Canada. Employment growth for core working-age European-born immigrants was relatively flat between 2006 and 2007 (+0.5%).

19 May 2008