Caution about economy leads to slight dip in Canada's consumer confidence: survey

The overall measure of consumer confidence in Canada decreased slightly in the latest wave from 85. 9 in May to 82.4 on Friday, according to a survey released by Harris/Decima-Investor's Group.

Canadians remain more likely to see good times financially for themselves a year from now than bad, said the survey. In total, 26 percent of Canadians believe they will be better off a year from now, consistent with the 27 percent recorded in the last wave.

One in five Canadians see good times ahead for the economy in the next twelve months, down from the 25 percent who said so in the last wave.

In terms of how people perceive the last year, 15 percent indicated they were better off financially compared to a year ago, while 24 percent feel they are worse off. These numbers remain essentially unchanged from May when the split was 15 percent to 23 percent.

According to the survey, a majority (about 55 percent) believe there will be good times financially for the Canadian economy in the next 5 years, while 32 percent believe there will be unemployment and recession over this period.

Roughly half (about 49 percent) believe that now is a good time to make a major purchase. This is down slightly from the 53 percent who said so in February. Nationally, 36 percent believe it is a bad time to make such a purchase, up from the 30 percent recorded in May.

"Although the decline was relatively small, this marks the second quarter in a row that Canadian consumer confidence has seen a slight drop," said Senior Vice-President Doug Anderson.

These data were gathered through teleVox, the company's national telephone omnibus survey for two weeks from August 19 to August 29, 2010 for just over 2,000 completes.

Source:Xinhua