Photo by eckenheimer
According to data revealed by Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, Ontario economic performance exceeded analysts‘ expectations, reaching a 0.9 per cent growth in the fourth quarter. The jump constitutes an annualized growth rate of 3.8 per cent for 2010 – a number that easily outperforms the national economy as well as that of the United States.
Getting over the hurdle
The favourable fourth-quarter figures were mainly fueled by strong foreign exports (which showed an increasing trend despite the rising dollar value), as well as surging consumer spending and business investment activity. “The Ontario economy has now had six quarters in a row of growth, and we’re very pleased with the results,” Duncan beamed.
With the economy moving full-steam ahead and the favourable, newly-released figures, an overall economic recovery is apparently under way, and doubts about a possible return of the downturn are heard less and less. According to Duncan, Ontario’s economy has already recovered 93 per cent of the jobs lost during the crisis and more than 239,000 new jobs were created between May 2009 and March 2011.
Duncan’s political opponents, however, claim that the picture of the economy is not as rosy as it is presented by Duncan. They point out that the unemployment rate in the province has lagged behind the national average for almost four years. The New Democrats further add that the quality of the newly-created jobs is far below the quality of the jobs lost during the recession. “People lost good paying jobs and many of them were replaced with part-time or lower-paying jobs,” said NDP critic Peter Tabuns. On the other hand, Liberals claim that not only are most of the recovered jobs full-time, but they were also created in sectors offering above-average salaries.
