Total retail sales in British Columbia dipped slightly from April to May, making it the only province in the country that didn’t see growth over this period, according to Statistics Canada data released July 23.
Retail sales in B.C. declined by 0.1% to $5.5 billion in May after increasing 1.6% in April.
Meanwhile, across the country, retail sales grew 0.7% to almost $42 billion.
“The Canadian consumer’s resiliency in the face of a stagnant labour market is no small feat,” said CIBC economist Nick Exarhos.
“The volume gain for May retail sales adds to positive monthly reports from wholesaling and manufacturing.”
The positive retail numbers indicate that the Canadian economy is expected to post a 0.4% real GDP gain, Exarhos said.
“That’s good enough to leave Q2 tracking a pace only a hair under the Bank of Canada’s 2.5% forecast.”
Overall, motor vehicle and parts dealers led the increases in terms of total dollar growth, with a rise of 2.5% to just under $10 billion. This was offset in part by a drop in food and beverage store sales, down 1.6% to $9 billion.
The province with May’s biggest dollar gain in retail sales was Ontario, with growth of $107 million to $14.6 billion.
Despite the decline in B.C.’s retail sales in May, there was an overall year-over-year increase of 6.4% – the highest increase in the country and considerably higher than the 4.0% growth seen nationwide.
In the 12 months to May, Ontario once again saw the biggest dollar increase, with growth of $536 million.
