economy
CONDITIONALLY POSITIVE Despite clouds of uncertainty beginning to settle over our economy, Canadian businesses maintain positive views of the landscape ahead.
First, the good news: according to a recent (Q4 2021) survey by Statistics Canada, 72.6% of polled Canadian businesses indicated that they were optimistic about conditions over the coming 12 months. Within this group, 1 in 3 said they were “very” optimistic. All good, right? Well, sort of. Economic headwinds are blowing increasingly intensely these days due to the uncertainty created by variety of factors such as heightened inflation, rising interest rates, a red-hot housing market, and war in Europe. Many of these were present at the end of last year, too, which one
can surmise is part of the reason why business optimism actually fell between Q3 and Q4 2021. It might be nitpicking, especially given the harsh economic climate we all experienced in 2020, but the proportion of businesses who said they were optimistic about future conditions actually fell from 75.7% in the final quarter of 2021, with the share of businesses indicating a degree of pessimism rising from 10.9% to 14.3%. Having said this, the economy's tailwinds are likely to outblow its headwinds over the coming year, portending brighter days ahead.
THE FUTURE’S BRIGHT WITH THE PANDEMIC’S END IN SIGHT
very optimistic 21.9%
very pessimistic 2.7%
somewhat pessimistic 11.6%
surveyed in Q 4 2021 indicated they were optimistic about the next 12 months 72.6% OF BUSINESSES
uncertain 13.1%
somewhat optimistic 50.7%
DATA: PERCENTAGE OF POLLED BUSINESSES INDICATING AN OPTIMISTIC, NEUTRAL, OR PESSIMISTIC OUTLOOK SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA, CANADIAN SURVEY ON BUSINESS CONDITIONS
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