Saskatchewan consumers have been a resilient lot in the past year. Despite all the uncertainty caused by elections at three levels, trade wars and tariffs affecting our export markets, consumer confidence has remained rock solid in the province.
The latest retail sales or consumer spending figures came out Friday providing confirmation of the trend. We had a bit of pull back in March, down a half point from February, but growth in overall spending of more than 8-percent for the twelve months that ended in March…well ahead of inflation.
The national average was about three-points lower than Saskatchewan’s figure.
Not surprisingly, one sector that saw some big gains in March was seasonal: garden stores did exceptionally well in the month and so did building suppliers. But sales of clothing were also strong along with luggage and jewelry. The largest improvement was in motor vehicle sales although purchases of gasoline actually pulled back.
StatsCan has also issued a preliminary estimate for April’s activity and, while it will likely change, the positive outlook remains intact with a projected gain of half a percentage point.
