Productivity fell by 8.7 percent. The second biggest drop was 4.1% in Saskatchewan. According to Statistics Canada,
Real output was down for the first time since 2004, because of a sharp downturn in oil and metallic mineral extraction. At the same time, hours worked fell by 6.3%, also the largest decrease among the provinces.Real gross domestic product as down 14.5% from the previous year, but total compensation was up 2.4%, hourly compensation was up 9.4% and unit labour costs were up 19.8%. In each case those figures were the largest for the 10 provinces. Only the territories saw higher increases in unit labour costs and hourly compensation.
Broken down by the goods and services sector, the figures showed higher losses in the goods producing sector. That’s consistent with the declines in oil and mineral production in the province.
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