Canada desperately needs to build, but it’s getting worse at it

A broad consensus in Canada has emerged and it’s inevitably going to wipe on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party: Canada is bringing in far too many people and can’t build the housing or infrastructure to support them.

Young people are brutally feeling the squeeze with Friday’s jobs report showing the unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 up 3.2 percentage points year-over-year to 14.5% in August 2024. That’s the highest since 2012 and it’s 16.3% for men.

The short-term solution that voters want is to tighten, if not close the doors on immigration but in the long term, the solution is to build. But as National Bank shows in a chart today, Canada just isn’t very good at building. I’m not sure if it’s the composition of the labor force, a over-focus on white collar training or massive amounts of red tape but productivity in construction is now lower than it was 30 years ago.

These numbers highlight just how hard it will be to turn the Canadian economy around, as it’s increasingly limited by structural factors.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.