Canada's output per capita plummets

Ambitious' growth needed to reverse drop in productivity

- ANA PEREIRA

Real output per capita has fallen to seven per cent below its long-term trend since the pandemic, resulting in a decline of roughly $4,200 per person, according to a new report by Statistics Canada.

To reverse the trend, GDP per capita, a metric used by economists together with other economic indicators to evaluate a country’s standard of living, would need to grow at an average yearly rate of 1.7 per cent, authors Carter McCormack and Weimin Wang found.

That figure is close to the expansion in GDP per capita seen in the U.S., which swiftly recovered from pandemic economic lags and currently ranks as the most productive country in the G7, according to RBC.

Meanwhile, GDP per capita in Canada has plummeted to levels observed in 2017 based on historical data from 1981 until 2023.

“Per capita growth of this magnitude is ambitious and a marked departure from recent trends,” McCormack and Wang wrote.