From BCREA Blog
One of the more challenging aspects of tracking the performance of a provincial economy is that provincial gross domestic product data, the best summary of economic performance, are only released annually and with a significant time lag. Although there are a number of provincial economic data released every month such as retail sales, housing starts, and imports and exports, measuring the combined meaningfulness of these releases for economic growth can be difficult. However, using a statistical method called principal components analysis allows us to summarize large amounts of economic data into one convenient measure of the economy and, through some additional number crunching, we can then produce a monthly measure that accurately tracks actual annual growth in real GDP.
Using our tracking measure, we can see the boom years in the middle of the decade, the BC economy slowing in 2008 before collapsing under the weight of the financial crisis and the turnaround started to take shape later in 2009. We also see the burst of growth from the Olympics in the early months of 2010 and the fading of economic growth in the early months of 2011 as global economic uncertainty stifled consumer and business confidence.
Looking at the current state of the BC economy, the province has been experiencing solid growth, likely above 2.5 per cent and trending upwards. As long as this rate of growth holds, BC should start to experience stronger employment growth in 2012 which will help to underpin demand in the housing market.
Looking at the current state of the BC economy, the province has been experiencing solid growth, likely above 2.5 per cent and trending upwards. As long as this rate of growth holds, BC should start to experience stronger employment growth in 2012 which will help to underpin demand in the housing market.
