The Weekly Review, January 27 to 31, 2025

Operating revenue in the real estate agents and brokers industry falls in 2023

The Canadian residential real estate market continued to face challenges in 2023 in the wake of lower home sales activity. This contributed to an operating revenue decline of 16.6% to $17.6 billion in the real estate agents and brokers industry.

Source: Real estate agents and brokers, 2023

Mental health-related and learning disabilities are the most common disability types among youth in 2022

In 2022, just over two-thirds of youth with disabilities (67.9%) had a “milder” disability while nearly one-third (32.1%) had a “more severe” disability. Among youth, the three most prevalent disability types were mental health-related (13.6%), learning (9.2%), and pain-related (6.7%).

Source: Youth with Disabilities: Education and Employment, 2022

Job vacancies fall in 15 of 20 sectors on a year-over-year basis in November 2024

In November 2024, there were fewer vacancies in 15 sectors compared with one year earlier. The largest declines were recorded in accommodation and food services (-29,100; -33.3%), retail trade (-29,000; -41.5%) and construction (-19,000; -32.5%). Over the same period, job vacancies were little changed in finance and insurance, in real estate and rental and leasing, in educational services and in public administration.

Source: Payroll employment, earnings and hours, and job vacancies, November 2024

Real gross domestic product decreases in November 2024

Real gross domestic product decreased 0.2% in November 2024, the largest monthly contraction since December 2023, following a 0.3% increase in October 2024. Overall, there were broad based declines as 13 of 20 sectors contracted in November. Goods-producing industries contracted 0.6% in November, partially offsetting the increase recorded in October (+0.9%), with mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction and utilities driving most of the decline.

Source: Gross domestic product by industry, November 2024

Net saving improves the most for middle-income households in the third quarter of 2024

Most households improved their average net saving in the third quarter of 2024 relative to one year earlier, as cost-of-living pressures generally eased. Households in the middle 20% of the income distribution had the largest increase in net saving in the third quarter (+26.7%) relative to one year earlier because of limited spending on a range of items, such as food and beverages, clothing and footwear, and household equipment.

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

Revenue of travel agencies hits all-time high in 2023

Operating revenue at travel agencies rose 55.5% year over year to $2.8 billion in 2023, exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 11.6%. The profit margin for travel agencies reached 14.8%, the highest profit margin in more than a decade. Travel agencies and tour operators faced large losses because of pandemic-related restrictions, with many firms going out of business, leaving only the more profitable firms standing.

Source: The business of planning that winter getaway