The Weekly Review, October 7 to 11, 2024

Canada's merchandise trade deficit with the world widens in August 2024

In August 2024, Canada's merchandise exports fell 1.0%, while imports edged up 0.3%. Consequently, Canada's merchandise trade balance with the world widened from a revised deficit of $287 million in July to a deficit of $1.1 billion in August. After accounting for the previous month's revisions, this is the sixth consecutive monthly deficit.

Source: Canadian international merchandise trade, August 2024

The share of assets in Canada owned by foreign-controlled enterprises decreases in 2022

The share of assets owned by foreign-controlled enterprise, which has steadily declined since 2007, decreased by 0.2 percentage points in 2022 from one year earlier. The decline was mostly due to Canadian-controlled enterprise assets growing at a faster pace than those for foreign-controlled enterprises. Canadian-controlled assets were valued at $14.5 trillion, while foreign-controlled assets were valued at $2.5 trillion—this results in a higher share of assets owned by Canadian-controlled corporations (85.3%) compared with foreign-controlled corporations (14.7%).

Source: Foreign control in the Canadian economy, 2022

Employment rises in September 2024

Employment rose by 47,000 (+0.2%) in September 2024 while the employment rate declined 0.1 percentage points to 60.7%. Employment rose among youth aged 15 to 24 (+33,000; +1.2%) and core-aged women (25 to 54 years old) (+21,000; +0.3%). In September, the unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 6.5%. Total hours worked fell 0.4% in September but were up 1.2% compared with 12 months earlier.

Source: Labour Force Survey, September 2024

Mortgage debt increase of least wealthy outweighs real estate gain in second quarter of 2024

Economically vulnerable households—those with lower incomes, those with less wealth, and those in younger age groups—continue to struggle to maintain their financial well-being relative to other households amid persistently high interest rates and housing cost pressures. Although the least wealthy held and acquired real estate, their average net worth (-1.4%) decreased in the second quarter of 2024 compared with a year earlier, as the increase in mortgage debt to finance those assets (+6.0%) outweighed the increase in the value of their real estate holdings (+2.6%).

Source: Distributions of household economic accounts for income, consumption, saving and wealth of Canadian households, second quarter 2024

International students at private colleges are highly concentrated in a small number of institutions in 2021

The rising number of international students in Canada over the past decade has been a topic of great public interest. One of the questions raised about this phenomenon concerns the role of private colleges and the quality of education that international students receive there. There were an estimated 16,610 international students enrolled at private colleges in Canada in 2021, accounting for 16.9% of all students enrolled at a private college. The bulk of international students at private colleges were concentrated in about 20 institutions, where international students made up at least three-quarters (75%) of the student body.

Source: Study: International students in private colleges, 2021

Spotlight on youth mental health

The 2023 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) followed up with individuals who participated in the 2019 CHSCY to see how the physical and mental health of the children and youth have changed over the past four years. In 2019, the survey asked youth aged 12 to 17 years to rate their mental health using five broad categories: “excellent,” “very good,” “good,” “fair” or “poor.” At that time, 12% of this age group had rated their mental health as “fair” or “poor.” That proportion more than doubled to 26% in 2023, when they were aged 16 to 21 years.

Source: Mental Illness Awareness Week: Youth mental health in the spotlight