The Canadian economy posted flat growth in August, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
Goods-producing industries saw their sharpest drop since December 2021 as manufacturing and utilities sectors contracted in the month. Some growth in services, particularly in the finance and insurance and the public administration sectors, offset the drop, StatCan said.
Lockouts in August from CN Rail and Canadian Pacific Kansas City also drove down the transportation and warehousing industry. That followed another sharp downturn in July as Jasper wildfires disrupted national transportation networks.
StatCan’s early look at the month of September projects a bounceback with 0.3 per cent monthly growth in real gross domestic product. These advance estimates will be revised when the final figures for the month and the third quarter are released at the end of November.
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The Bank of Canada, which last week delivered an oversized 50-basis-point cut to its benchmark interest rate, has increasingly focused on the health of the economy as it crafts monetary policy, now that inflation has cooled back to its two per cent target.
Based on early readings for September, the third quarter is tracking for annualized real GDP growth of 1.0 per cent. That’s below the Bank of Canada’s calls for 1.5 per cent growth in the quarter, which was already revised down from July’s expectations of 2.8 per cent.
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