OTTAWA — Ontario, which makes up almost 40 per cent of Canada's economic heft, is now in a recession, according to the ever-scrupulous but pessimistic forecasters at the University of Toronto's Institute for Policy Analysis.
Armed with fresh provincial government data for growth in the fourth quarter of last year, the forecasters say Ontario's economy contracted 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter. The province is in the midst of shrinking another 0.1 per cent in the second quarter compared to the first.
They expect no growth in the third quarter, but growth should resume by the end of the year.
“As recessions go, this one should be very mild,” say economists Steve Murphy and Peter Dungan.
“We continue to be concerned, however, that the contraction in the U.S. economy will turn out to be worse than we expect,” and put further pressure on the Ontario economy, they said.
A recession is informally defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
For the entire year, Ontario's economy will show 0.1 per cent growth, the UofT forecasters say. That's considerably lower than the 0.8 per cent they're expecting for the entire country.
The recession will take its toll on employment levels, the forecast shows.
Das Kanada Forum
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23.04.2008 14:43
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