Even ordinary Canadians have noticed that the economy is not recovering as many hoped it would.
The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell 5.7 points this month and now sits 13 points below where it stood at the beginning of the year.
Coincidentally, the index in the U.S. also fell sharply in June–by about 10 points–over concerns that unemployment remains high despite better economic news in the last six months. It was the first setback since February.
In Canada, consumers expressed increased pessimism on all four measurements in the index–current finances, future finances, employment expectations and purchase intentions.
“The drop cancels out all the gains realized in May,” said the Ottawa-based think-tank.
“However, the pessimism is not spread across the country. The drop in confidence was concentrated in two regions (Ontario and British Columbia), while the remainder of the country fared much better.”
The drop in the index reflected more cautious economic data in the past month or so after six months of robust growth.
Recently, Statistics Canada and other economic watchers have reported sharp drop-offs in the growth of housing, auto sales and exports, along with lower employment growth as well as outright declines in wholesale and retail sales.
Conference Board economist Todd Crawford said some consumers in Canada may have become more pessimistic because of the barrage of negative news over the European debt crisis.
But he said the large drops in Ontario and B.C. were also likely significant, since those provinces are in the process of enacting an unpopular harmonized sales tax.
The Conference Board said the survey found many people were concerned about job security.
