economy
JOBS IN METRO VANCOUVER Employment in Metro Vancouver expanded at a respectable rate last year; the challenge will be to keep it up.
Often overlooked in conversations about housing in Canada’s most expensive market is the health of what might be referred to as “local fundamentals”. While there is no unanimous consensus around what these fundamentals comprise, local population growth and change, incomes, and employment are commonly cited as three of the most important factors. Put slightly differently, a housing market that has the benefit of a growing local population (and hence growing demand) and increasing purchasing power (through rising incomes and employment) is more likely to be dynamic than one that features slow or no population growth and a stagnant local economy. It is, therefore, useful to note that the normalization of Metro Vancouver's
housing market has been occurring concurrently with an employment base that has continued to grow in 2018, outpacing national employment growth over the same period by more than half, at 2.2% versus 1.4%. Impressively—but not surprising given the hole out of which it is climbing— Edmonton registered a 4.4% increase in jobs in 2018, which is the fastest among the group of metros that also includes Calgary and Toronto. With much tighter conditions characterizing labour markets across Canada, a continuation of the most recent rate of employment growth in Metro Vancouver is likely in the near-term (in contrast to the past 5-year average growth rate of 3.6%, for example), which in turn will provide support for a stabilizing housing market.
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