Growth levers: infrastructure, business confidence<\/p>\n
Deloitte identifies two potential growth drivers with direct workforce implications. The first is government spending on infrastructure, defence, critical minerals, and resources. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major projects office is aimed at accelerating approvals of nation-building initiatives, creating near-term demand for skilled trades, engineers, and project management talent. Government fixed investment surged 7.3% last year; Deloitte projects a more moderate 3.7% gain in 2026.<\/p>\n
The second is restoring business confidence through regulatory reform, including removing interprovincial trade barriers \u2014 a persistent obstacle for HR departments managing cross-jurisdictional workforces and credential recognition \u2014 and investing in worker re-skilling and AI. “What we’re looking for is some of the hurdles to business investment being reduced,” Desjardins told the Financial Post.<\/p>\n
Inflation at 16-month high complicates compensation\u00a0<\/p>\n
With salary review cycles now running against the highest inflation rate since December 2023, total rewards professionals face growing pressure to close widening gaps between internal pay scales and market rates. Statistics Canada reported Monday that inflation rose from 2.8% in April to 3.2% in May, while Deloitte expects the Bank of Canada to hold its benchmark rate at 2.25% for the rest of 2026 \u2014 limiting relief from the interest rate side.<\/p>\n
Desjardins said the May increase was concentrated in energy costs and expected to ease, with crude oil having fallen to just below US$70 per barrel on Wednesday after surging above US$100 in late April. Employers managing group benefits programs linked to energy-sensitive cost indices should nonetheless monitor whether the moderation materialises as forecast before finalising mid-year compensation adjustments.<\/p>\n
GDP growth in Canada is \u201cexpected to strengthen over 2026 and 2027, reaching 1.2% and 1.7% respectively, as the economy recovers from the 2025 trade\u2011related slowdown triggered by higher US tariffs,\u201d according to a previous report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growth levers: infrastructure, business confidence Deloitte identifies two potential growth drivers with direct workforce implications. The first is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,29644,6103,37255],"class_list":["post-103385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-deloitte","tag-growth","tag-national-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}