Construction council expects to lead growth
OTTAWA–Blood’s on the floor of the world’s stock exchanges and Canadian investors are nervous about the future, but you wouldn’t know it from those who help run Canada’s construction industry, one of the healthiest economic sectors.
"We’re now doing our forecast for next year and construction is going to be the main driver of the economy," says George Gritziotis, of the Construction Sector Council.
He begins to tick off an impressive list of major private and public sector capital projects on stream, from expansion of the Alberta oil sands, to government infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges, oil refinery expansion in New Brunswick, building linked to the Vancouver Olympics, home construction and others.
As an afterthought, he mentions that, in contrast to the U.S. housing debacle, Canada will see between 210,000 and 220,000 new homes erected next year.
"Our biggest challenge is finding the workers to do all that work."
Canada’s construction industry, employs about one million people coast to coast bad credit payday advance. Despite the Bank of Montreal’s gloomy "recalibrating" its growth forecast yesterday down to 1.4 per cent for 2008, from 2.2 per cent, many economists don’t see Canada hitting the skids.
A new survey of 12 economists finds forecasts for 2008 growth from 1.5 per cent to 2.8 per cent. The most optimistic Conference Board of Canada says, with employment at a record high, wages rising, and tax-cut stimulus, Canadians will simply spend their way to a sound economy.