THUNDER BAY — A group that tracks the health of local economies believes Thunder Bay is headed to a fifth straight annual increase in Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services produced.
The Conference Board of Canada is an independent, not-for-profit think tank that researches economic trends and policies.
The board's latest Metropolitan Outlook projects "another year of moderate economic expansion for Thunder Bay," with real GDP slated to come in at 1.2 per cent.
It says the local economy "plods on," noting that Thunder Bay has just completed a string of four straight modest annual real GDP advances—averaging 0.9 per cent—the longest streak in 15 years.
The report highlights retail and wholesale trade sales, noting last year's 7.2 per cent increase was an all-time record for the city. That pace, however, is unsustainable, so the board projects retail and wholesale trade growth of 3.2 per cent this year.
The Conference Board expects total employment in Thunder Bay to rise 2.2 per cent, a five-year high, and the jobless rate to fall from 5.6 per cent last year to 5.1 per cent this year.
For the fourth straight year, the board says, the city's manufacturing sector will inch higher, even though it remains only about half the size it was in the mid 1990s before the forestry sector collapsed.
Despite the fact the construction sector overall is set to grow a strong 4.5 per cent, new home construction is expected to decline in 2018, dropping to a 15-year low of 155 units before rebounding slightly next year.
The weak housing market, according to the board, will help to limit growth in the services sector to 0.9 per cent, the same as last year.
"Listless population performance" continues to impair both the housing demand and potential economic output, the report says.
The population level will hold steady, however, thanks to a second straight year of net in-migration to Thunder Bay, following three years of net out-migration from 2014 to 2016.
"The recent upswing in arrivals has been fuelled mainly by improved international migration...we expect small volumes of net in-migration to persist over the next few years," the Conference Board says.
It adds, however, that "these will be eclipsed by a negative natural increase" resulting from the death rate being higher than the birth rate.
