Halifax Economic Dashboard

Economic Snapshot

(Updated: May 2022)

• Population estimates for July 1, 2021, from Statistics Canada have Halifax's population at 460,274. This is a 2.1% (+9,262 people) increase over 2020, which is the third-highest growth across all CMAs. Also, interprovincial migration (60%) overtook international migration (28%) as the largest source of population growth in 2021. About 58% of all new residents were aged between 15 to 54 years.

• Retail sales were up 6.3% in February 2022 compared to a year ago, with the largest increase seen at gasoline stations (+20.2%). However, since September 2021 ( the 2-year high at gasoline stations) sales declined by 26.7%. Compared to January 2022 retail sales were up 2.4%. The largest increase was seen for clothing and clothing accessories stores (+26.1%) and the largest decline was for building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers (-8.3%).

• The inflation rate in Halifax remained unchanged in April 2022 at 6.6%. This is lower than the national and provincial figures of 6.7% and 7.1%, respectively. Inflation for water, fuel, and electricity remains the highest among subcomponents at 23.9%, driven mainly by the global oil price rise following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

• The overall office vacancy rate fell 0.6 percentage points from Q1 2021 to reach 14.2% in Q1 2022. Overall gross office rent increased by $0.36 to $29.16 psf. The industrial vacancy rate saw a decline of 1.8 percentage points, year-over-year , to reach 3.8%, with an accompanying average gross rent increase of $0.89 to hit $13.91 psf.

• The unemployment rate remained unchanged for the first three months of 2022 at 5.6%, its lowest rate since July 2019. The participation rate was 65.4% in March, down 0.5 points since February and its lowest since June 2020. The business, building and other support services industry saw the largest growth in employment year-over-year (+31.4%), whereas the utilities industry experienced the largest decline (-25.9%) over the same period.

• Halifax's average home price increased to $603,386 in April, up 0.9% over a month ago and 29.3% since April 2021. Market activity cooled for the fourth successive period in April with the sales-to-new listings ratio dropping to 69.3, the lowest since May 2020, from the high of 147.6 in December 2021.