Alberta to experience two consecutive years in a recession, ATB predicts
原始发布日期： 2016-01-14 发布者：李方字变大 字变小
Todd Hirsch, chief economist with ATB Financial, along Stephen Avenue in Calgary. Aryn Toombs / Calgary Herald The last time that’s happened was back in 1982-1983. The Alberta Economic Outlook Q1 2016, which was released Thursday, said Alberta’s economy contracted by 1.0 per cent in 2015 and it will see a further contraction of 0.5 per cent this year. Other economists agree with the negative outlook. “The pain is going to be concentrated in the first half of the year. But we don’t really see any ending in sight to a downturn at least until the end of the year. So we are calling for another contraction,” said Todd Hirsch, the ATB’s chief economist. But he said the good news is that he sees the economy experiencing a modest recovery in 2017 with 1.6 per cent growth followed by 2.0 per cent growth in 2018. The report said global oil supply, economic instability in China and tensions in the Middle East have pushed oil prices to 12-year lows. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil, which has been hovering in the US$30-33 range in the last few days, “is not expected to recover appreciably for some time,” it said. “This low price environment continues to discourage new investment and spending and has weighed down employment — not only in the oilpatch, but throughout most sectors of the province.” Hirsch said some of that investment can’t really get too much lower. “This downturn is longer in duration certainly than 2009 was which was a very quick downturn but very short-lived. This one is going to linger on longer,” he said. The report is forecasting the unemployment rate in Alberta to rise from 6.0 per cent in 2015 to 7.2 per cent in 2016 before falling to 6.3 per cent in 2017 and 5.9 per cent in 2018. ATB said employment will fall by 0.3 per cent this year after 1.2 per cent growth in 2015. Employment growth is expected to be 1.8 per cent in 2017 and 1.1 per cent in 2018. “Where we see some turnaround is towards the end of the year and that is kind of the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Hirsch of oil prices. “We do see oil prices posting a modest recovery by the end of the year. It’s not going to bring all the investment in the energy patch back in but I think it will lift the clouds enough that people will stop laying people off for one thing and start looking for opportunity. The M&A activity will pick up. “By this time, producers will have gotten their costs way down to the point where $50 or $60 oil could work again. We’ll just start to see the seeds of the green shoots of growth come up again towards the end of the year.” The ATB report said oil prices will remain volatile and weak for the first half of the year struggling to rise above the US$45 per barrel mark until mid-year. The most likely scenario is that oil prices will hover in the US$30-40 range in the first half of the year and US$50-55 by year end. In the second half of 2016, any number of possibilities exist when it comes to oil. ATB said a severe pullback in the China economy coupled with OPEC oil supply continuing could push oil to US$20 per barrel. But more robust Chinese and emerging market economies along with some pullback in Middle East oil production due to violence and turmoil could pull oil back up to US$80 per barrel. Robert Kavcic, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets, said it is forecasting contractions of 1.5 per cent in 2015 and likely 1.0 per cent in 2016 for the Alberta economy with a rebound of 2.1 per cent in 2017. “I think probably the best way to explain it is to think of 2015 as the year that the economy dealt with the initial drop in oil prices and 2016 is going to be the year where the economy deals with all the fallout from that drop in oil prices,” said Kavcic. “Last year, you saw obviously very big, aggressive cutbacks in capital spending budgets in the energy sector. That directly cut GDP growth itself. This year you’re probably going to see the weakness spread more broadly into things like fewer people moving into the province because there just simply aren’t the jobs that there were previously. That’s going to have a negative impact on consumer spending and housing demand . . . All of that is probably going to persist right through this year.” A provincial forecast update by Scotiabank is also calling for an economic contraction in Alberta this year of 0.2 per cent after a negative 1.6 per cent in 2015. The bank is forecasting economic growth of 2.2 per cent in the province in 2017. It said Alberta’s annual average economic growth between 2000-2014 was 3.5 per cent. Scotiabank is also expecting the price of WTI oil to slip from an average of US$49 per barrel in 2015 to US$40-45 this year and US$45-50 in 2017. mtoneguzzi@postmedia.com Twitter.com/MTone123 Calgary Herald |