Premier Lord said in October that New Brunswick in 2005 would see the best job growth in 30 years. He talks ad nauseum about all the prosperity he has bestowed on New Brunswick. His sentiments are echoed by Al Hogan at the Times and Transcript.
However, this is not the view of the economics group at the Bank of Montreal. They just updated their provincial forecast tables yesterday. Here’s some of their predictions:
*Job growth in 2005 will be the worst in Canada along with Newfoundland – actually it will be a decline in jobs. Those ‘pesky’ job figures again 🙂
*Real GDP growth has and will (forecasted) underperform the Canadian average from 2003 to 2010. So much for the Prosperity Plan goal of reducing the GDP per capita gap (unless we continue to lose significant population).
*The unemployment rate will remain third highest in Canada until 2010.
*Retail sales growth will underperform the national average until 2010.
Prosperity abounds! Break out the champagne!