More and more Canadians are looking at the national economy's prospects in a positive light
The federal government’s sustained deployment of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide is fuelling increased consumer confidence, according to polling conducted by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg.
The latest edition of the Bloomberg-Nanos Consumer Confidence Index registered at 64.6 in the week ending May 14, in line with the 12-month peak and markedly higher than the 63.56 level four weeks prior.
“Canadian consumer confidence remains positive and the improvement in opinion registered in March continues to hold,” said Nik Nanos, chief data scientist. “The proportion of Canadians who think the economy will be stronger in the next six months has hit a 10-year high.”
Nearly half (44.63%) of Canadians polled believe that the economy will become stronger in the next six months, while only 27.77% said that it will weaken during that period. Approximately 18.33% said that they are not expecting any changes to the economic status quo.
This confidence was especially apparent when it comes to the housing market. The majority (61.32%) of Canadians believe that that the value of real estate in their respective neighbourhoods will increase over the next half-year, while 25.97% are expecting prices to stay the same. Only 6.57% are anticipating a decrease in prices during that period.
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However, when asked about their financial state over the past 12 months, 25.03% of respondents said that they were better off now compared to the same time last year, while 26.15% said that they were worse off and 47.78% said that their situation is unchanged.
Expectations for job security were brighter, with 48.76% of Canadians saying that their current jobs are secure and 21.08% believing that they are somewhat secure. A mere 5.49% said that their jobs are somewhat not secure, while 7.31% believe that they aren’t secure.
