Saskatchewan consumers held their own this summer.
The tally of retail or consumer sales prepared by Stats Canada for August showed the province’s stores saw revenues grow by just over one per cent for the month which was roughly six points higher than the same time a year ago and stronger than July’s result.
The 1.1 per cent month-over-month figure was on par with the national average and the 6.4 per cent year-over-year number was about one percentage point higher than the national figure.
One of the challenges of tracking these data in an environment where gasoline prices are much higher than a year ago and quite volatile is trying to sort out how much of the increase is just inflation pushing up prices versus “how many things did we buy?”
According to the Stats Can report, the volume of purchases – in other words, the number of things we bought or the volumes – was actually up in August which can be viewed as a test of consumer confidence as revenues rose in all nine retail categories the agency tracks. Leading that growth was the automotive sector.
— For more than 50 years, Paul Martin has specialized in coverage of the business and political scenes. His career has spanned radio, television and print and electronic media.
