philip635.substack.com/p/measuring-...

On July 29 StatCan released a 'corrected' version of its table 36-10-0713-01 with annual labour productivity statistics for 2025, by industry and province. They contrast greatly with the annual version of the quarterly LP statistics released June 3. Hard to know what's going on with Canadian LP.

Canada's monthly exports to EU nations are volatile, but have been trending up since early 2024. They plunged during the pandemic period, but have now recovered to the pre-pandemic level. The government is doing what it can to keep them growing at a strong pace. #cdnecon

Among the economically advanced democracies, it seems the smaller ones tend to have the most prosperity. The US, UK and Canada should learn from this although what the key lessons are, I am not sure. More decentralization perhaps? Or perhaps the opposite? prosperityindex.com/rankings

Rankings :: The Legatum Prosperity Index

Explore the Legatum Prosperity Index rankings. Compare how 161 countries perform across the Development, Freedom, and Society domains with detailed pillar breakdowns.

prosperityindex.com

With 0.9% real growth (3.5% at annual rates), as reported by Statistics Canada today, the Canadian economy was steaming in 2026 Q2. #cdnecon

SEPH's estimate of weekly total employee compensation fell 0.2% in May reflecting a 0.3% drop in average hours worked, a 0.1% decrease in average hourly compensation and a 0.1% rise in employment. The 12-month increase was 3.8%. philipmsmith.shinyapps.io/SEPHbrowser/ #cdnecon

There's concern recently about Carney not being sufficiently transparent, eg. the bridge deal and tariff discussions. I think he is not transparent on some issues because he sees potential advantages for Canada that the incompetent Trump administration does not. There's no point in telling them.

StatCan released restaurant and tavern receipts data for May 2026 today. As we all remember and as seen in the chart, the industry took a big hit during and after the pandemic, but it is doing well again now. Receipts were up 0.9% in May and 5.5% since May 2025. #cdnecon

Canadian retail sales have been doing exceptionally well since the start of the year. StatCan today released numbers for May and June at 1.0% and 0.4% and the YoY increase to June was 4.9% (according to the advance estimate). #cdnecon

Here's my latest (free) Substack paper on the frailties of productivity statistics. philip635.substack.com/p/how-to-rea...

How to read the productivity statistics

They must be interpreted very cautiously

philip635.substack.com

In June, Canada's CPI dropped 0.1% after seasonal adjustment, although it was up 2.8% on a YoY basis and 2.7% on a 3-month annualized basis. philipsmith.ca/CPI

LFS employment overall has hardly shown any growth since the end of 2024, except for self-employment. #cdnecon

New car sales data for May were released by StatCan today. The volume of new motor vehicle sales has turned up this year and is rising as a percentage of the estimated existing stock. #cdnecon

The cyclical component share of GDP (consumer durables, residential construction, business non-farm inventories) tends to drop when approaching or in a recession. Based on the unemployment rate, Canada is not in recession. Nevertheless the cyclical share has been falling since 2022 Q1. #cdnecon

Labour income is more than half of GDP and the LFS provides an early reading on it. The LFS data for June show labour compensation to be up 4.2% year-over-year, one of the smallest increases since February 2021. Employment was up 0.5%, average hours worked 0.3% and average hourly earnings 3.3%.

philipsmith.ca/macroindicat...

In case you haven't seen them and are interested: philipsmith.ca/dashboards/

Canada's imports rose 0.4% in volume terms in May while our exports decreased -0.1%, StatCan reported today. In current dollar terms however, exports increased 0.9% while imports edged down 0.2%, as the terms of trade moved in Canada's favour. #cdnecon

The decline in Canada's GDP per capita explained. #cdnecon

Canada's real GDP remains essentially on the same trend line seen from Jan 2010 to Feb 2020, although it had appeared to be well below that line until the national accounts revisions that were done last year. #cdnecon

Real growth in the computer systems design and related services industry ground to a halt three years ago and has remained flat since. It grew at an 8.7% compound average annual rate from 1997 until the standstill. This may be both caused by, and a cause of the Cdn productivity slowdown. #cdnecon

Those interested in the arcane topic of national accounts revisions might find this app useful: philipsmith.ca/revisions

Overall real GDP strengthened in April but in federal public administration, estimated net output was down substantially as the Carney government cut back on employment. (In the absence of market values for government output the estimates mostly follow employment trends.) #cdnecon

In the past LFS and SEPH told a similar employment story, after a few reconciliation adjustments were made (see chart footnote). But the two survey pictures have diverged since around the start of 2023. This of course is tied to the policy-induced swings in population. #cdnecon

Real fixed-weight average hourly earnings from SEPH dropped substantially in April. It was the first significant decrease since December 2023. #cdnecon

StatCan reported LP by prov today and they persistent in including public sector "productivity" as part of the total. But those numbers are misleading as I have argued previously. For 2025: all ind 0.7%, education 2.6%, health care 3.0%, public admin 1.3%. philip635.substack.com/p/measuring-...

Measuring aggregate government productivity

A near impossible task because while we know what government output costs, we do not know what it is worth

philip635.substack.com

StatCan today released details for its method to estimate the trend-cycle component of a time series. I have incorporated their method in the 13-MA transformation in my macroindicators app. Click the "About" button for explanation. philipsmith.ca/macroindicat...

Data released by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis today indicate that real personal disposable income per capita continued to decrease on a YoY basis in May. #us_economy