More from the 2004 BC Check-Up Encl...

More from the 2004 BC Check-Up

Enclos with Beyond Numbers this month is a pattern of the 2004 edition of the BC Check- Up report. The report is a 16-page summary of extensive research findings that are available in sated on our Check-Up website at www.bccheckup.com.

This article spotlights about of the information on the site, delving into the three main topics we're focusing in succession during our current media campaign: financial vulnerability, piece of work creation, and innovation.

Financial vulnerability

In the past several years, the Canadian economy benefited from gentle interest rates, which fuelled the two consumer spending and housing investment. However, these gentle interest rates also led to a dramatic rise in personal indebtedness, which stood at historically high on a levels in Canada in 2003.

In BC for instance, total indebtedness by means of capita rose by 34.1% between 1998 and 2003 In absolute denominations the province's debt levels ranked secondary highest among those in the comparison jurisdictions, behind Ontario.

BC's total personal misdoing increase of 6.6% in 2003 actually exhibited an improvement, as it meant a decrease in the expansion rate. Nevertheless, total debt by capita in BC remained highin fact, it was 9% more than the combined total of the one and the other Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The composition of total fault split between personal consumer transgression and mortgage debt also differed within our comparison areas. BC consistently had the highest ratio of mortgage trespass to total debt, standing at 722% in 2003 compared to 685% for Ontario, the secondary highest jurisdiction. This result wasn't surprising given that BC had the highest average housing prices completely through the 1998-2003 period.

Even granting per capita mortgage debt in BC increased by means of 25% between 1998 and 2003 the development in personal consumer borrowing outpaced mortgage borrowing by way of more than two to undivided In fact, borrowing for the two consumer goods and housing investment outpaced personal disposable income germination and brought down personal savings rates.2 Negative for seven years, the savings rate in BC hit a reasonable of-8.2% in 2003, with total real personal indebtedness by capita very nearly equalling real personal disposable income (91%)

Job creation

Between 1998 and 2003 athwart 1.6 million jobs were created in the Canadian economy, with almost 80% of these in the service sector. forward the goods manufacturing side, the mostly rapid employment growth during this time took place in utilities, construction, and manufacturing. do job-work losses in agriculture and resources sprout some of these gains.

Of the comparison provinces, Alberta and Ontario ranked highest in piece of work creation between 1998 and 2003 (135%) During the same period, BC's piece of work creation performance was 8.2%.

In absolute confines BC gained a total of 153100 piece of works between 1998 and 2003, through the whole extent of 90% of which were in the service sector. This five-year gain in service-sector piece of works was actually ten times higher than in the goods-producing sector, and was unique to EC's labour market. from one side of to the other the same period, service sector office growth for the national average was 45 times that of the goods-producing sector; service-sector do job-work growth in Ontario was three times higher than work at jobs growth in the goods-producing sector; and service-sector work at jobs growth in Alberta was barely 2.5 times greater than in the goods-producing sector.

In BC a province with a protracted history of primary-resource harvesting and manufacturing, this kind of development in the service sector signified a fundamental shift in the economy. Between 1998 and 2003 the largest application growth in the service sector occurr in trade (26200 jobs); educational services (25700); health care and social assistance (17200); professional, scientific, and technical services (16800); information, agriculture and recreation (12,000); and accommodation and nourishment services (12,900).

While the Lower Mainland/Southwest Region of BC continued to dominate in engagement growth, gains in the service sector actually occurr quite through the province. Tourism is a case in point. uniform as North American tourism incomes faltered in the wake of September 11 2001 this sub-sector continued to generate above 4% of EC's GDP. In fact, it created thousands of do job-works throughout the province over the past decade, as BC communities sought recent ways to diversify their local economies.3

By contrast, a los of piece of works in the forestry, fisheries, and mining and oil/gas extraction industries dampened overall profession gains in the goods-producing sector between 1998 and 2003 However, although 3900 piece of works were lost in resources during this time, this los was equivalent by a significant gain of 10400 piece of works in durables manufacturing. Adding a certain quantity of smaller gains in other sub-sectors, the pure effect was a total gain in the goods-producing sector of 12900 jobs

Between 2002 and 2003 piece of work creation in BC accelerated in replication to improved markets and economic conditions. During this period, 22800 novel jobs were generated in the goodsproducing sector-approximately 7900 of them in resources alone. This signalled improved occupation in the resource subsector, where piece of works in forestry, fisheries, and mining and oil/gas had declined steadily across the previous four years.