The story is still the same….but the numbers are changing.
With each passing week, the condition of the provincial economy is changing and trying to keep up to it is almost full-time work for the bevy of economists working for the major chartered banks. We’ve seen forecasts from many of them in the past few weeks and now we have the first ‘second update’ from RBC Royal Bank.
And to say it is different than what they were seeing a couple weeks ago is an understatement.
Normally, RBC is among the more bullish on this province. But this latest update, released Monday, puts it in the bearish camp.
Two weeks ago the bank was projecting that our economy would contract by one-percent. This week, they’re saying the decline is going to be more like five-percent….5.2% to be precise. That’s a touch deeper than the national figure and all the other provinces except Alberta which, the bank says, is on track for an eight-point decline.
They say unemployment will average about 11-percent – equal to 80,000 jobs – after peaking at 15-percent in the next month or two.
