According to the latest Canadian Survey on Business Conditions, Canadian businesses continue to see inflation as their biggest near-term obstacle. A whopping 60% of firms expect inflation to be a challenge, the highest response rate in the history of the survey. Read more key takeaways from our Business Data Lab and stay tuned for a deeper dive in the coming weeks.
More generally, the survey shows that Canadian businesses continue to struggle with rising input costs related to the high inflation environment, hiring workers in a very tight labour market, and lingering supply chain challenges.
In the midst of these widespread inflation concerns, it’s encouraging to see the first signs of improvement on this front: consumer price inflation finally edged down in July (to 7.6%, down from 8.1% due to falling gas prices), and for the first time since 2021, the share of businesses that say they expect to raise prices in the coming quarter has dropped (to 34% in this survey, down from the record 39% last survey.