Economic Impacts of the Housing Industry

 

About the report and fact sheets

Each year, CHBA produces Economic Impact Fact Sheets that report on the significant economic impacts of the residential construction industry across Canada at the national, provincial and community levels. The new home construction home and renovation industries are crucial to the Canadian economy at large and in every single community, creating jobs at the local level that help our communities thrive. The fact sheets reflect estimated economic impacts of residential activity for the past year based on Statistics Canada and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) data.

As of last year, CHBA is also pleased to present our annual publication: Residential Construction in Canada – Economic Performance Review 2020 with 2021 Insights. This report provides a holistic overview of the housing market and the significant economic impacts of the residential construction industry in Canada. The report leverages published government data from a variety of sources, with more analysis, explanations, and graphs.

The report also includes our annual Economic Impact Fact Sheets which highlight the importance of the residential construction industry within Canada’s economy and in each community across the country. For your convenience, you can find the individual fact sheets using the Power BI Dashboard at the bottom of this page.

Key findings include:

  • In 2020, there were a total of 1.24 million on-site and off-site jobs created in new home construction, renovation, and repair – which makes the sector one of Canada’s largest employers.
  • 58% of the total number of jobs were concentrated in renovation and repair while 42% can be attributed to new home construction.
  • This work resulted in $81.1 billion in wages that show up in other consumer spending across the entire national economy and help increase economic activity.
  • The residential construction industry is the largest single wealth-builder for most families and provides for $138.1 billion in economic investment. The value of economic investment declined slightly, year-over-year, by 1% in 2020.
Pie chart showing jobs within the residential construction industry with more jobs being in renovation and repair than new construction
Bar chart showing historical wages and investment with a slight dip from last year

Tips for using the Power BI Dashboard

  • Power BI is a business analytics service by Microsoft. It aims to provide interactive visualizations and business intelligence capabilities with an interface simple enough for end users to create their own reports and dashboards. 
  • The dashboard will allow you to visualize the data efficiently, with the ability to click through different locations. There are two dashboards available, one specific to 2020 only with all the locations from the Economic Impact Fact Sheets and the other showing the historical trends in Canada’s provinces and territories. 
  • If you would like to take a screenshot of a specific location’s data, you can use the “Snipping Tool” on your laptop:
    • To open the Snipping Tool, press the Start key, type snipping tool, and then press Enter.
    • Click on “New” and take a screenshot of the dashboard.
    • After that, you can copy and paste the image wherever you like or save it on your laptop.

 

Contact Information
For questions or comments on the Economic Impact Fact Sheets or the Economic Performance Review report, please contact Viktoria Halim, CHBA Economist at [email protected].