B.C.’s economy will improve slightly this year and next, before accelerating considerably in 2014-2016, says a new forecast by Central 1 Credit Union.<\/p>\n

According to Central 1’s chief economist Helmut Pastrick, the provincial economy will grow about 1.7% this year, down from 2.6% in 2011.<\/p>\n

“B.C. will grow about 2.2% in 2013, then gain momentum to 3.5% in 2016 as the U.S. starts to recover,” Pastrick said.<\/p>\n

“The biggest risk to this continuing recovery is another recession, but I think that is a low probability,” Pastrick said. “I also think we will continue to muddle through the euro crisis with a series of patchwork measures.”<\/p>\n

B.C.’s economic growth through 2016 will be largely driven by domestic demand, according to the report, with consumer spending and the housing sector expected to expand at a moderate pace.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate is declining amid improving job market conditions, and this trend is expected to continue. In fact, Central 1 predicts that B.C.’s unemployment rate will fall to 5% or lower by 2016, from 7% in 2012.<\/p>\n

Improving labour markets will support personal income rates in the next few years, but only moderately, the report says. Central 1 forecasts personal income growth of 3.8% in 2012 and 3.3% in 2013. By 2016, however, it anticipates personal income growth jumping to 6.5%.<\/p>\n

Industries expected to perform particularly well in the next few years include construction, forestry, wood products and primary metal manufacturing, and retail-wholesale trade services. In contrast, Central 1 expects public sector industries such as utilities to see slower growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personal income growth to jump to 6.5% by 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38967,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2312,2313],"tags":[2364],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38967"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284575"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=284575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}