Interactive tool: Canadian Economic Dashboard and COVID-19
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Released: 2020-03-26
On January 29, Canada's first presumptive case of the novel coronavirus (also known as COVID-19) was confirmed as positive. Within two months, the COVID-19 pandemic had spread across the country, affecting every facet of the Canadian economy. Today, Statistics Canada is releasing a dashboard that presents selected indicators to help monitor the impact of the pandemic on economic activity in Canada.
The dashboard includes 16 indicators from a range of monthly data programs—real gross domestic product, consumer prices, the employment rate, merchandise exports and imports, retail sales, hours worked, manufacturing sales, air and railway transportation, and travel.
Each indicator is presented from January 2019 to the current reference month, and expressed in terms of month-over-month and year-over-year changes. In addition, an index has been created for each indicator to more easily track and compare the relative impacts of COVID-19. With December 2019 as the base reference period, each index will provide a baseline to measure the effects of the outbreak as new data are released.
Data are not expected to reflect the full economic impacts of COVID-19 for some time. For instance, some indicators for January, such as aviation statistics, were not significantly affected. Others, such as international trade—which showed a 7.8% decrease in exports to China and a 12.1% drop in imports from China—already reflect the effects of the outbreak. The dashboard will allow users to track the impact of COVID-19 over time as it affects different aspects of the economy.
The dashboard will be updated as new data and analysis become available. These will include short explanatory texts that summarize and highlight effects specific to provinces and industries. More indicators may be added to the dashboard to provide additional timely measures and a more comprehensive picture of the rapidly-evolving situation.
Products
The dashboard, "Canadian Economic Dashboard and COVID-19," is now available online.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).
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