The Government of Alberta puts out a report each month called the monthly economic review. Here are some of the highlights:
- Alberta’s unemployment rate was 6.9% in February, up from 6.6% in January and 5.9% last February. It is still below the national average of 8.2% This was the combined effect of a drop of 14,800 in the number of people employed between January and February and an increase of 6,300 in the number of unemployed people.
- Consumer spending was up 0.7% in December '09 compared to '08 but retail sales fell 8.4% when looking at the year as a whole
- New car sales fell 4.7% in December '09 compared to '08
- In February 2010, Alberta urban housing starts increased by 145.3%, compared to February 2009, as a result of large jumps in both multiple unit starts (up 199.2%) and single unit starts (up 132.4%).
- In February, the number of active drilling rigs rose by 42.4%, compared to the same month of 2009, to 339 rigs. On a year-to- date basis, the average number of drilling rigs increased by 25.0% from the same period in 2009.
I do know how I feel. I’m bursting to talk about this issue as there is a lot of misinformation out there. However I do know how I feel about my thread being hijacked – this article is about Alberta’s economic situation not the competition bureau so we have removed the unrelated comments.
The most interesting numbers to me are the new urban housing starts up by 145% and the number of active rigs up by 42%. That tells me that the big companies are willing to invest in Alberta and it is fairly safe to assume that they would have done extensive analysis before committing money to new projects here.
All in all very favorable.
Would be nice to see a stat of in-migration, but I guess it would be reflected in the job numbers.
Should’ve kept the royalties up. The companies would not have ran away and we could have improved our current and future infrastructure and financial safety.
Hopefully the Alberta government can start working on the Edmonton infrastructure. This will not only make it more attractive for companies to invest in edmonton but also provide some much needed jobs to gbring down unemployment.
I believe that`s the most shocking: “In February 2010, Alberta urban housing starts increased by 145.3%, compared to February 2009, as a result of large jumps in both multiple unit starts (up 199.2%) and single unit starts (up 132.4%).”